Rib-caged Hearts
by michellemybelle25
Summary: Isn't it better to live and feel than to exist with a heart in a cage?
1. Chapter 1

Hello! It's been quite a long time since I posted. Those of you who follow my Facebook page know just how hectic my life has been with the new baby and new books coming out. I barely have a moment to breathe. But I've been eager to get this posted for those of you who have been patiently waiting a new, long story.

This is a little something different, and I just want to say straightforward and upfront that my stories are not for everyone. I write for my love of the characters and giving them new situations and obstacles to deal with. If the story is not for you, that's fine, but please remember that I put my heart and soul into every word I write and I'd rather not be torn apart for giving my ideas a voice. I don't want to start censoring every word I write; if I ever get to that point, I might as well quit writing altogether. I have always been very respectful to other authors and their work; please respect mine.

Now onto the story. Oh, and for those waiting with baited breath, _Manifestations of a Phantom's Soul_, volume 2 will be out in less than 2 weeks. Updates are on my Facebook page for anyone interested. The cover is already posted, and it is gorgeous! Thank you, Jessica Elizabeth Schwartz!

SUMMARY: Isn't it better to live and _feel_ than to exist with a heart in a cage?

"Rib-caged Hearts"

Chapter One

This was the moment he knew he would win.

Erik's fingers glided over the violin's strings, his bow extracting pure tone and legato lines. Music was a web he readily wove about her like the cunning spider, raveling careful thread after thread about something desired and so very wanted. This was his prize and prey. _Christine_… And yet if he were that hunting spider, he would not devour her and stake his undeniable prowess. No, he would bow his head in reverence, weep salty tears of humility, and suffer whatever fate she saw fit merely for breathing the same air.

Christine… His obsession in one fragile being and a meager handful of letters. He'd pursued her to her father's grave at Perros with stealth on his side. She'd never known he'd been the shadow in the backdrop, the silent sighs on the wind. He'd followed, never close enough to be caught or sensed, and yet attuned to every flutter of her dark lashes, every breath past her lips. As far as he was concerned, he wasn't devoted enough if she weren't the one and only consideration of his mind. Ever since she'd ensnared him in her own web with her voice as its gossamer threads, delicate but unbreakable, he'd been the willing supplicant in the wake of her every step. Pathetic? Perhaps, if love were not the binding cord between them. Love…well, love from his corner. Her own return had been an echo and gasping in its suffocation. He'd been terrified she would never be strong enough to let her heart truly beat…until this moment.

Erik watched her from atop the ivy-encased roof of the mausoleum as she approached in tentative footfalls. His beautiful songbird… She was the definition of the angel he could never quite be. Innocent, tender, …perfection. Her blue eyes were surveying the space behind every headstone, seeking his shape as if a glimpse were necessary. Why didn't she run or shout for aid? Six months of separation meant hundreds of minutes for her thoughts to be adducted and transformed into a mirror of her ignorant Vicomte's. Erik had expected fear, mistrust, not even a flicker of the tender emotions he'd once carried as his most precious gift…emotions for a fallen angel. He'd never been certain _Erik_ was worthy to own them, subject to too much suspicion and doubt after he'd revealed his true mortal makeup, but…here they were.

She searched with her heart two steps ahead of her. It was the beacon light, brightening the heaviness of a clouded, evening sky. Her desperation grew as he remained no more than invisible violin strings, and a bizarre anticipation altered to an impatient trepidation.

Anxious not to lose the chance, he hopped down from the rooftop, never missing a beat or faltering a single pitch with an unwanted waver. The moon was random beams peeking between the clouds, and for once in his life, he did not avoid their gentle graze. He let them color his silhouette and toss their fleeting glow along his masked face and was unsurprised when a soft gasp resounded back. Gasps, cries of terror and revulsion, disgust at every angle, such tokens were usual, but the barely audible sound still grated on him as if it were a scream instead. He almost regretted showing himself, …almost because the instant he dared to meet her wide gaze, he knew only longing and it surpassed everything else.

Her eyes were windows but not to the proverbial soul, as he had heard it said; they revealed a heart in their deep pools, vulnerable and exposed to its every artery and vein. He didn't need to break the walls always insurmountable that usually hid a single glimpse. No guessing, no prying. He could read its yearning as acute and passionate as his own, and it stole his breath away. For the first time, a note on the violin trembled and gave him away. An unsteady hand and an unstable heart. He let his own walls crack ever so slightly, and through their fractures, he showed her a mirror of her every emotion.

This was new and unexpected. He'd planned for her fear and uncertainty, her timid avoidance of any feeling with a root inside. He hadn't once pondered she might be satisfied with his appearance. He was the dreaded Opera Ghost after all! He'd nearly dropped a chandelier atop her head six months before in the fit of a broken heart! Yet that reality had not seemed to change anything. Here was the girl who'd loved an angel, the girl he'd adored right back, and all he could think was that even if he didn't deserve her, she was his.

Christine lingered a fair distance, gazing upon him as he continued to play with hands whose motion was even more beautiful than the music they created. _Angel_ had been her first musing. Her angel returning to fill the gaping void his absence had ripped into her being. But…the angel preferred beauty and honeyed lies to keep its pretense. The angel had used music to cast spells and lure her in with unrealistic promises.

The first strains of the violin had had her certain he was playing that game again, and Lord help her, she'd wanted to leap heart-first and believe. But to her surprise, he'd shattered the illusion himself this time and stood before her as vulnerable as she felt, and the music was no more than background. They were only a man and a woman with hearts that were always a bit too similar in their design. And for once in their sordid relationship, they stood face to face and let nothing matter but the wanting to be in each other's presence. No more roles. She just wanted to _feel_, and she was suddenly doubtless he wanted the same.

Music drew to a necessary close, and she saw his hands shake as he lowered the instrument and put the last question mark to rest. There was no manipulation here; he was making that assertion vivid and pronounced with nothing but a gesture. He cast no spell; she knew all that he was this time. And though the word 'murderer' should have come to the forefront, it dawdled in the furthest reaches of her mind and could not come close to 'love'.

"Erik…" She spoke first, unsure he could find the clarity needed to break his silent observation. He was studying again. How often had she caught him doing that in the days she'd been his eager pupil? Scrutinizing her every detail, but not in search of faults to criticize, but in search for more points to adore. He seemed to want to know her every nuance. No one else had ever cared so much.

Erik felt every letter of his own name caress his skin like a tangible touch. Good God, to hear it on her lips… And yet bitterness came with one thought. Had she spoken it even once during the last six months? Had his name gone eagerly forgotten in her memory, a word she'd hoped never to consider again? He was hungry for its sound, so certain it made him more than the ghost in the corridors; she gave him life…

In a soft whisper, he bid, "I thought sure you would only speak the word 'monster' upon seeing me. Six months ago, I was not a man worthy of even a name in your eyes. You did not speak it to your Vicomte. No, …you called me 'monster' then."

Revelations on a rooftop, a betrayal she'd likely believed only the stars spied, and he watched her brow furrow to realize he'd heard her every admission.

"You should have known that shadows have ears," he stated, feigning apathy and never once looking away from the emotion-play upon her pale face when blue eyes had lowered to the carvings upon headstones.

In little more than a whisper, she replied, "I have spent every night for the past six months praying to a nonexistent angel for forgiveness. That night on the roof was a sin I felt as heavy as God's final judgment. It hurt and weighed on my soul, and I thought I was the only one to carry its shame…"

As blue eyes finally lifted, he found them shimmering in a sheen of tears, _more unexpected proofs_… With a waver in that voice he so adored, she bid, "I'm sorry, Erik."

"Sorry? For speaking the truth?" he demanded back. "I cannot reason laying condemnation for facts. I may have ached to be more for you, but a monster is still a monster in its veins. Even a good façade cannot change it, and lying made me more a monster yet. I pretended to be in the scope of angels… _There_ is a sin that needs forgiveness. I played an angel with a devil's desires and nearly _killed_ you for denying me." His own rush of shame arrived with one recollection of the crystal explosion of a plummeted chandelier, and shaking a heavy head, he decided, "'Monster' is a fitting appellation. How dare I judge you for reminding me that I am no gentleman with an unsullied soul? I am a demon on hell's doorstop. Curse me, Christine, and _never_ love me in return."

He hated stating it so plainly. He wanted love, ached for _hers_ more than anything in his existence, but he didn't deserve anything so beautifully fragile. Monsters deserved hellfire.

"Ah, you order it, and that is how it is to be," Christine declared, and his pained expression turned into a hard glare that she'd dare be so blunt. She knew why. She'd never spoken out of turn with him and never would consider voicing a contradictory thought, and even now as she made the effort, it was lackluster and without a flame beneath because she still bore a certain amount of intimidation for the man who'd once coerced her into following angels. She knew his power and his threat and was afraid what he expected to gain when they both knew she was another man's fiancé.

In a snap, he retorted, "And shall I order you to _love me_ instead? Would it change anything if I did? A monster is a _monster_. Why do you not take heed of that undisputed fact? You were _right_; I am not protesting a single word spoken to your Vicomte. I know what I am, Christine. I accepted it long ago; _you_ were the one who never saw the truth. You searched for a man beneath a demented palette, but he doesn't exist. I devised him and created his caricature. I made him walk and run, breathe, sing to your innocent soul, but he was never real. Could a man who loves in the right way hate at equaled levels? …I wanted to kill you that night; I wished for your death like no other. You humiliated the heart I offered you and presented your own to another man's care. _That_ was your unforgiveable sin."

His accusation inspired more tears that built like waves over her image of his shape, and lowering their telltale sparkle again, she asked, "And is that why you stayed away for six months? Was it my punishment? …Has my penance now ended and absolution come with your return, or do you intend to hurt me all over again?"

"Hurt _you_?" Erik gaped, sneering with the spark of his temper. "None of this was about your naïve heart and its weaknesses. Staying away was my own punishment. Take away the one thing in the world I longed for. Prisons deny a man food and water, the essential necessities of life; I denied myself of my own equivalent. It made sense. I would never ask for God's forgiveness, but this was a pious act of supplication."

"But now you've returned," she reminded, and he could not tell if she perceived it as her misfortune.

"Things change," he replied, trailing the curve of her cheek with his gaze. "One small tremor could quake the world on its axis if it strikes the right fault line, and you… You are my tremor; you shake me to my bones. If I've ever longed to be a better man, _you_ are the reason to redefine 'monster'. Running away from you was running into hell with a blackened soul. You are redemption, Christine, and I would be a fool to let you go without a fight."

She trembled beneath the weight of his assertion, and he could not say there was no fear in her when she kept blue eyes lowered and guarded once again. Desperate for the knowledge, he demanded, "Are you afraid, Christine?"

"You pin so much to me, Erik," she breathed. "I don't want the power to save souls; it's too much responsibility to bear. I do not possess God's authority to absolve sins and bring salvation. I am one person, and yet you place me on an idol's pedestal. Don't make _me_ your redemption."

"You're wrong," he quickly protested. "You are so much more than one person; you are the only one ever to matter to me. I've _never_ considered any being's life above my own, but I would surrender my existence to preserve yours. Have you any idea what that means? I spent six months hating myself for almost destroying my only blessing in the world, and then an epiphany brought me life anew. You weren't dead, and I wasn't completely lost…not yet. If I can earn your love, then I'm saved."

"Erik…"

He could not fathom if her whisper was a desire or a warning, and so taking small steps closer under a veil of timidity, he continued, "Do you ever consider your angel anymore, Christine? Is he even a single thought in your mind?"

"The angel wasn't real," she insisted, but he wondered if her words were only for herself.

"Not the white wings or the halo or the ethereal beauty, but everything else was closer to the truth than I've ever dared venture for anyone." Desperate to interpret her downcast expression as he neared, he admitted, "I like roles. I like the power and anonymity of being someone else, someone who has never been a victim, …someone unashamed to be himself with every flaw in skin and bone. When I was your angel, I was only Erik, and if you _loved_ an angel, then…of course, you loved Erik."

It was the point that had struck him with a dull thud when realization had entered the dark catacombs. She'd loved _him_, and then when the masks were off, he'd averted to his preferred role of Opera Ghost and played it to perfection. He knew the script so well that its demeanor was a second skin. And he hadn't been punishing only _her_ with its aloof arrogance; he'd punished himself and sabotaged the love story that could have been had he spoken humbly and gently and let the angel's aura live on.

She never replied, and it only convinced him that he was right. Ever shy when in her presence without haughtiness to hide behind, he stood close enough to hear her every trembling breath. How he longed to touch her! To surpass these awkward moments when he was already doubtless they were meant to be together, and take her into his arms. It could be so simple! Why did they keep tossing their own obstacles into the fated path and creating complications?

But keeping restraint, Erik did not more than bring one gloved hand across the distance. It bore a quiver, but he permitted it to go unmarked as his fingers caressed the air beneath her chin. The gesture made no contact, and yet through its guided flourish, he brought her blue gaze to his and locked it into place, grounding himself in a myriad spiral of emotions she could not run from this time.

"I've never been allowed to love you," he said in a thick breath, "not without plaited glass between our worlds. But glass can break and shatter to nothing; it need not be a cemented wall without hope. I _have_ hope; you've given me hope tonight."

Christine wanted to demand 'how', but sense already knew. Her heart was too plain in eyes she yearned to lower and a shared gaze she couldn't seem to break. It told its secrets with or without her consent and made embers of that so-dubbed hope into flames.

Silence extended a long pause as he seemed to decipher every telling revelation in her eyes, and she had a thought that the moment called for music. She was terrified he would begin to sing or hum; even a few solitary pitches from that angel's voice would have been her undoing. Music was the tightest bound thread between them. How often had he tugged its end and drawn her back into spells of angels and paradise? In the first days after learning what the mask hid, she'd succumbed willingly. Music returned the angel to her and dulled the serrated edges of the truth. In its sphere, lies could be perpetrated, and she didn't care what lay beneath. Could one be called a victim if the assault was wanted and embraced?

To her surprise, he did not call upon music's power this time. He left silence to charge the molecules between a hand's untouched touch and made the uneven cacophony of their syncopated breaths mean more than any legato line or tumultuous symphony. Moving by an internal metronome, he formed caresses in the air just beyond her cheekbone. Never even a graze, he drew his fingers down her hairline, lingering a hairbreadth from her jaw, and though she never felt the leather of gloved skin, she knew a shock just the same, tingling the flesh he'd diligently outlined as if sparks danced along the surface. It was temptation, and as a breath she hadn't realized she was holding escaped in a subtle sigh, she ached to give in.

One hand cupped her jaw with never a touch, and the other traced the curve of her shoulder, so close that she felt her gown's material stir in the motion. She shivered and waited in impatient urgency for his fingers to meet her skin, but his resolve was set and he never brushed more than air.

Christine's better judgment called it another game, but music was not its fuel. Emotion overrode, and it shook her far more because at its core was a vulnerability, vividly proclaiming that _he_ was afraid. The almighty Opera Ghost was as shattered as the plaited glass between their worlds, and all she saw in mismatched eyes was a man whose heart mirrored her longed-for angel's. It was _real_ and genuine, and it brought desperate tears to her eyes to ache so much.

"Erik," she gasped as gloved fingers followed the space above her bare collarbone, and though she arched toward him and invited the contact she yearned for, he never took it. "Please…"

"What, Christine? What do you want?" He asked and seemed to have no idea what the answer could be, and it was so innocent and endearing that she nearly lost a smile.

Trembling to take bravery upon her shoulders, she whispered, "Touch me _please_."

The beseeching struck him with a visible shudder and a sort of incredulousness that she adored. It was as if he couldn't quite trust his own ears and words he only _thought_ he'd heard, and then as they settled in the air between contact, he was more shaken yet. His gloved hand nearly rattled in its quiver, and fingers whose joints could not keep stability curled into his palm and tried to create a firm fist.

"Touch…touch you?" he stammered. "I once repulsed you to your core, made your cells crawl with merely the concept of my flesh against yours. You used to cower and avoid any contact as if I would contaminate you."

"Things change," she repeated his own assertion in another whisper, too tongue-tied to say more and grant him the full extent of how she ached. She pleaded in a gaze alone, a blush heating her cheeks in reds, and waited with baited breath for him to submit and cross the miniscule chasm between them.

But he didn't. Still keeping her stare captive, he drew his tremulous fist to his mask and replied, "Not everything changes. _This_ will never change; it will forever remain the same horror you once uncovered in disgust and terror. You speak of sins to bear punishment for. I have been punished since my birth without just cause, and no amount of prayer will change it."

Before she could gauge his intent, he closed his fingers about the mask's lacings and worked them quickly and deftly, bringing that manmade barrier away in his palm as he reminded with detachment she knew was feigned, "_This_ will _never_ change."

Christine had convinced herself that she would be prepared for the day she saw Erik's face again, but dreams had held hazy discernment. This was real; it was sharp and in focus without the inherent benefits dreamscape brought. She could not avoid the details that were the most unpleasant or fuzz them into the periphery. His face was a tragedy; there was no way to sugarcoat the blatant truth.

"A _monster_, Christine?" Erik inquired and never shied back to the shadows. Not this time. Last time he'd cowered, and what had it brought him but heartache? But he hadn't controlled the scene then; _she_ had acted, and he'd been left to form a semblance of order in chaos. He recalled recoiling into the familiar comfort of beckoning shadows and allowing them to conceal the stark oddities of a half-constructed face until the mask was once again in place. Now he kept reality blunt and saw her shiver with her rising anxiety.

She didn't have to reply; he already knew what he was, but…even monsters could _feel_. When rejection threatened to steal the hope he'd garnered, he opted to _change things_ yet again.

Staring at her through the mismatched colors of his eyes, he presented the façade of a corpse. It _had to be_ a façade, for what corpse could feel so deeply, love so passionately, burn to his core? She needed to know that the image he gave was as much a lie as Opera Ghost. But his face was his betrayer, and when her eyes viewed truths, he refused to accept sight as anything but another liar.

"Close your eyes, Christine," he crooned tenderly and was overcome when she obeyed. Her trust was endearing; despite every factor in between, she _trusted_ him, and he claimed it as another blessing.

Approaching her slowly, he bore the awkwardness of moving without a mask to be his ally. Every stimulus gave its attack: the evening breeze stung with its whipping gust; the chill was bitter; the moonlight burned in its illuminating spotlights. He'd never been more aware that he was different than at that moment: without a mask, standing before a beautiful, innocent girl with perfection on her side.

But he did not falter. Mere inches from her silhouette, he lifted one trembling hand as his ears taunted and replayed her pleading to _touch_ her. Touch…but he knew Christine all too well, and with the hint of an undeniable smile curving his misshapen mouth, he brought his hand to her upturned face and set it over her closed eyes. Curiosity was her inherent downfall. He'd requested closed eyes and was doubtless curiosity would stir through the blood of her veins and have her peeking at him within the moment. So he took the option away and rested his hand ever so gently along her brow, feeling the delicate tickle of her lashes within the curve of his palm.

The hint of a smile became a full showing to feel her tremble but never draw away. He raced his unhindered gaze over her skin, closer to her than he typically stood, and the hand still clutching his mask came timidly about her waist. No more than his bent knuckles touched her, delicately pressing to the small of her back and guiding her near until they almost shared an embrace. He heard her breath catch, but again, she did not try to pull away, and he named more blessings.

Dear God, to have her… He ached to make this last forever, to be engulfed in the innate heat radiating from her at every second, to have her scent taint every breath into his lungs, …to be _mask-less_, without his typical shield and know if he wanted, he could press a kiss to her forehead and taste her skin… It was ecstasy.

Christine could not stop shaking, but the vibrations were shared. She felt the hands so innocently against her suffering their own matching tremors as if they sinned and knew they wouldn't be forgiven for it. She longed to tell him this was no sin, but words wouldn't form on her tongue.

Without her eyes, she concentrated on Erik and never once ruminated upon the term 'monster'? An untouched touch moments before had pulsed with an intrinsic heat that made her crave more. The minor space between bodies was charged more powerful yet, quaking her knees as upon the surface of closed eyelids, she envisioned sparks glowing and leaping from one corporeal shape to the other. Sparks in blues and silvers, heated at their centers and striking with a delicious tingle she felt travel every inch of her skin.

With an inaudible sigh, she crept closer, brave but shy as inches extended in leaps and bounds. The hand against her spine was pliant and never made the motion for her. She acted alone until she was near enough to feel him hold his breath, the chest but centimeters from hers stilling its inhalation when exhalation would have added too much space.

"Oh, Christine," he moaned without sound as that breath finally escaped, and she savored the way he made her name sound like desire, as if it were a provocative, intimate musing, …as if he'd said it before when passion played in his mind and she was privileged only this time to be in the scene with him.

Impulse begged her to make that final step and press fully against him. She was so close to obeying its siren command. The merest step, and yet it took more courage than any other. But all she could think about was setting her lips against his heartbeat and learning its beautifully erratic rhythm. …She never had the chance.

"Christine…" Her name, not spoken passionately or reverently but with an edge of horror from an unwanted voice.

The bubble popped unceremoniously and dropped reality like a leaden weight upon her, crushing in its abrupt heaviness. …She'd wanted to fly with angels.

All at once, an almost-embrace vanished, and her eyes were freed of their mask so that lids fluttered open and accepted truths again placed before her. Her beleaguered fiancé hurried between headstones, his terror-stricken eyes locked on the corpse beside her, one who'd risen from his grave only to carry her to death with him.

Her attention drifted to Erik's exposed face, and it felt like she saw it the first time that moment, looking with part of Raoul's aghast bewilderment. If she did not know the heart beating within a monster's façade, she would have been overwhelmed in revulsion for a creature so damaged and demented. He was half a nightmare scripted out of a fairytale, ugly and surely like nothing God Himself would create and manufacture in His holy hands. A breathing horror… But she saw inside the distorted package and watched a vulnerable heart shield itself in armor as stark as the mask he quickly replaced over skeleton features.

"A _monster_, Christine?" Erik demanded again, but he did not wait for an assessment. With his arrogant Opera Ghost pretense reconstructed, he gave a haughty bow to the Vicomte and disappeared into the shadows beside the mausoleum.

Christine stared after him only a second before changing her mind and rushing to Raoul instead. "Raoul, stop," she pleaded, catching his sleeve in her hand and blocking a pursuit she was doubtless he intended. "He's gone already."

The Vicomte cast one more glance to the mausoleum before grasping Christine's shoulders between his palms and searching her face. "Are you all right? Dear God, did he hurt you?"

"No, of course not. He wouldn't dare," she promised, and yet she carried her own suspicions against her word. Hurt her? …He'd break her heart, and she'd let him do it. Forcing focus on the unconvinced Vicomte, she pushed, "You followed me out here?"

"I was worried," he admitted, "and obviously with just cause." Cursing beneath his breath, his hands changed their grip, cupping her cheeks and seeking her inner soul with his stare. "Are you sure you're all right, Christine? You're shaking…"

In truth, she'd never stopped shaking from the moment a violin had called in its plaintive serenade, but forcing a weak smile, she insisted, "I'm fine now that you're here. I just…wasn't expecting all the ghosts to rise tonight."

He nodded, but the concern in his expression remained…and _fear_. She saw it plainly put forth and did not protest a touch she'd never beg for as his arm slid about her waist and kept her close to his side. Glances were again thrown to the shadows as he guided a path out of the cemetery. She didn't tell him that a ghost watched their every motion from some unknown place or that when her trembling did not stop, it was because mismatched eyes were trailing her skin again and making her long for the tangible caress that was never truly taken.


	2. Chapter 2

Thank you everyone who is reading and enjoying this story! :)

Chapter Two

Erik stalked the darkened alleys of Paris, sullen and on the verge of melancholy. That was a dangerous path to follow. Melancholy often led to temper's flare and inevitable anger, and under its blinding veil, he could not reason clearly. That was when lives were taken and retaliations lost their underlying current of feelings. …That had been the case the night of a chandelier's fall when the woman he loved had become nothing but a valid spark of fury. …He'd only wanted to hurt her back.

Now he fought for distraction, but the picture of Christine leaving the cemetery curled to the Vicomte's side kept resurfacing to drive nails into his composure and entice it to crack. He was a monster… The disgust on the Vicomte de Chagny's flawless face had said it all in the instant Erik had allowed himself to be seen. It was a rare occurrence for anyone to glimpse his face and live for another breath, but though the temptation to lash out and kill the Vicomte churned in his belly, he had to deny its pull. For Christine, the Vicomte would live on. Erik couldn't fathom giving her more proofs of his heinous nature. …More reasons to hate him.

The only evidence of his unstable frame of mind was a raw growl that escaped as he turned from the dim alley onto the city streets. Home was but blocks away, and after his sojourn in the cemetery, he was beginning to anticipate the solitude. Too much exertion for one day, most especially with nothing to show for it. His overwrought mind was already rushing ahead and anticipating sitting before the hearth and letting the fire's flames hypnotize him. It was such a pleasant plan that he almost thought a familiar voice was only a flared memory ignited of its own accord in the back of his mind.

"I never realized ghosts could walk among the living at will. You're being careless tonight, Erik."

The breath was knocked out of him as he faced his own version of a ghost. Wasn't the past over-laden in them? Spirits to remind him of a time best buried and forgotten. Here was one, someone he'd hoped never to see again on this plane of existence.

"Damian," he greeted, resurrecting his haughty demeanor as if it had never been rattled. "Far from the Gypsy camps, aren't you? I did not think your kind were tolerated so close to the aristocracy."

"_My kind_?" the Gypsy repeated as he stepped out of the nearby shadows and closed the gap between them. "I suppose you're right, but I venture to say the same about you. Are men in masks tolerated out on the city streets? From what I heard, you're haunting an opera house in your spare time."

Erik tossed a nonchalant gesture to the silhouette of the opera house roof stretching above the buildings. "Is it a crime for a man to take a walk in the forgiving shades of evening? My habits are not typically worthy of question. I know no one, and no one knows me."

"Not as _Erik_," the Gypsy corrected with a snicker. "They call you Opera Ghost don't they?"

Erik's guard was in place, and narrowing a shrewd glare, he retorted, "Why are you here, trolling my city like a common thief? We have not crossed paths in decades, and now I come upon you nearly on my doorstep and ready to interrogate like the _gendarme_. What are you after?"

Damian's lips curled into a sinister grin, and he suddenly greeted, "Why, hello, Erik. It's been a long time."

_Decades_, Erik thought, scanning the Gypsy for every change. He had always been overly infatuated with faces and their distinct features. It was the point he lacked and envied on every ordinary individual, and as such, though the decades were apparent in their wear, familiarity shown through and had him recalling the last time he'd studied this face. It had been from behind iron bars…

"You've yet to answer my questions," Erik coldly bid. "Where are the rest of your cohorts?"

Damian shrugged apathetically. "I haven't been a part of the camp in years. They weren't paying me what I was worth and exploited my talents for their gain. …I'm sure you can commiserate considering you were paid nothing to star in their freak show."

Erik cringed and restrained an urge to lash out with temper and malice. Caged in a Gypsy carnival's freak show, made to sing and play his violin like a trained monkey… Such memories were only humiliations, and he hated knowing anyone shared them when they were best buried.

Scowling with no hint of his true chagrin, he concluded, "It is not chance that our paths crossed tonight. …You were looking for me, weren't you?"

Damian tapped his nose to reveal he was right and added, "For awhile now actually, but you've been a recluse confined to your opera cage. It wasn't as if I could wander inside among your aristocrat clientele, so I had to be patient and bide my time in this wonderful city. Many a man in these parts is gullible enough to fall for a few parlor tricks and believe handing over handfuls of coins will gain them knowledge of their future. Apparently, they take every dark-skinned foreigner for a fortune teller."

Erik recalled Damian's so-called performances for the ignorant souls visiting the carnival. They called him a magician, but his skills were shoddy when compared to Erik's. It had been a point of jealousy between them, but when Damian's act had been done on a makeshift stage and Erik's from behind bars with the threat of a whipping should he refuse, Erik saw no valid justification for resentment.

"I have little care for how you pass your time," Erik snapped, impatient for this confrontation to end. "Tell me what you want, lest I strangle it from your lips."

No intimidation was taken from the threat as Damian's smirk never faltered. "Is this any way to treat the man who saved your pathetic life?"

"Saved?" Erik scoffed dubiously. "You are no hero, Gypsy. Yes, you aided my escape, but when one notes that it was done to be rid of my presence and reestablish your top spot among the paying clientele, the sentiment loses meaning."

Shrugging idly, Damian agreed, "I won't call us friends, but if not for me, you would have continued as the caged freak. The boy with a corpse's face who could sing like an angel of God! Everyone wanted to ogle the human oddity and cast their insults. Most freaks are shams, but you were the real thing. And yet you never celebrated that fact; you only wanted to run from it, and _I_ helped you. Doesn't that earn me _something_? At the very least, you shouldn't be so hostile. I could have let you rot in that cage."

That wasn't entirely true. Damian's supposedly compassionate aid only made escape faster. Erik had been on the verge of dismantling the lock to his cage, mentally deciphering its mechanics at every spare, unwatched second when Damian had slipped the key between the bars. He would have escaped on his own; the key simply made it easier.

Stating the truth seemed like too many words that would reveal the real depth of his genius, and so with a huff, Erik asked less sharply, "What are you doing here?"

A smirk became a triumphant smile as Damian replied, "I heard stories all over the city about the Opera Ghost. You are practically a _legend_, demented face and all! The people in this ignorant city truly believe you are a creature risen from the grave to haunt and kill! Isn't that humorous and positively exhilarating? You should be proud of your notoriety. Consider it, Erik. Even a hundred years from now when you _are_ the corpse in the grave, they'll remember you."

"And is it more pleasant to be remembered by thousands for the score of my sins, or to be remembered by _one_ for something good instead?" Erik posed, trying to hide his self-disgust. He was going to live on forever in their minds as nothing but a murderer.

"What _good_ exists in you?" Damian asked with a chuckle. "You know, you changed my life back in that Gypsy camp, not because you were some sort of musical virtuoso or because your magic tricks were believable. That night you escaped, I watched you strangle the guard in front of your tent with your bare hands. You were so calculated and cold about it. I'd thought you were nothing but a pity case, but you let me glimpse true _evil_ that night. I knew you were going to do something great with it, and now you have infamy in your hands. You can't begrudge a man for wanting a piece of that."

Evil… He'd considered himself a monster, an immoral sinner, but…evil? That truly put him at the devil's level. It meant he had no remorse. …Did he? There were sins in his vaults that he was not sorry for committing and lives lost that he'd given not even a second thought to. That guard in the Gypsy camp was one. Remorse only existed for any sin that involved Christine. …Maybe he _was_ evil.

Acting unaffected, he demanded, "And what exactly do you want, Damian? I am not in need of an accomplice if that is what you mean, and if I am _evil_, you would do best to preserve your soul and stay away from me."

"It's a bit late for preserving souls," Damian replied with another chuckle. "Just watching you kill tainted mine. Surely every life you touch grows a bit of your contamination."

The idea disgusted Erik. It made him sound like a poison and a toxin meant to destroy any speck of goodness. …_Christine_. Her image flashed through his mind, her voice as she'd begged for his touch. He'd dubbed it a blessing and savored it with awe. Now with Damian's words in the background, he felt like the devil tempting to sin. …_Lust_.

Head spinning with the thought, he suddenly snapped, "Leave me be. I am through playing at congeniality. Any debt I owed you, you would do best to forget and let lie. The young man caged in a Gypsy carnival died the night he fled his past, and as you can see, the Opera Ghost took his place. That is all I am, and I will _not_ endure manipulations or blackmail. The Ghost is a master of the Punjab lasso; did any of the stories you heard tell you that? One motion will have your neck in my rope, and my inherent _evil_ will grant me no regret in taking your life. Now get out of my way."

"All right, all right," Damian conceded in a nonchalant tone as he held up defenseless hands. "I wouldn't want to stir your temper. But will you at least consider keeping an ally? I could help you, Erik. Given the right incentives. I've no remorse in killing either."

"You're wrong," Erik countered. "I _do_ have remorse, and mine can be greater than anyone's if the case is worthy. I do not kill simply to _kill_, Damian. The lives I've taken have been for my protection and to preserve my secrets."

"And dropping a chandelier?" the Gypsy posed, unconvinced. "Do you have any remorse for _that_? Because I heard there were lives lost, injury, bleeding, and mass hysteria. Was that done to protect your secrets?"

No reply would form upon his tongue. Evil… There was proof in favor of its heinous diagnosis. Sense knew the chandelier catastrophe had killed half a dozen; heart only cared about _almost_ killing Christine. He _was_ toxic, and perhaps his love was as much a poison as his hate.

"I have to go," Erik muttered as he shoved Damian out of the way without a second thought.

"I'm not judging you," Damian called after him. "Drop chandeliers, kill dozens! I don't care! Just give me a chance to be a part of the action."

Erik ignored him and hurried onward, darting into shadows and letting their colors engulf him. He didn't have to ask _why_ Damian wanted to associate with the Opera Ghost. The Gypsy had always favored any route to power, wealth, control. Erik had practically built an empire with every detail a Gypsy swindler could desire. And the sins involved were not deterrents to anyone with askew morals. Imagine! His miserable existence was being _envied_! He would have laughed if he didn't feel so despondent. He was a monster… He'd heard nothing in Damian's assessment but decided evidence of the evil in his soul.

He was extra cautious as he entered the catacombs, checking his alarms and traps in case Damian dared to follow. He would not be taken unaware. Only once in his existence had he failed; it would not happen again.

The past was close tonight, hovering like a vapor in the damp, musky air of the underground. A concentrated effort kept him from succumbing to its ebbing waves of memories, but only until his shaking hand slid the lock into place and trapped him in the sanctity of his home. Then it struck with a ferocity that made him quake.

Foreign sounds played in his inner ears: the accent of lilting voices, the rustle of tambourines in motion, the music… It had been purely by accident that he'd stumbled across that Gypsy carnival. He'd been desperate for somewhere to rest. One took for granted the safety that came with a roof. When one had only open landscape, sleep was vulnerable with no one to keep guard. He'd been captured in the midst of dreamscape. They'd believed he was the thief who'd been confiscating supplies from their camp, and before he could proclaim his innocence, he'd been tossed into a cage, his face exposed as they'd laughed and taunted. He'd been young and hadn't realized the true fascination his differences brought to the ordinary masses, but the Gypsy carnival managers had seen a source of endless profit and made Erik's new home a cage with no hope for escape.

It was difficult to fathom now as he existed so near to civilized society that young men could be kept in cages like animals and displayed as human oddities without any rights of their own. At first, Erik recalled resisting and refusing to cooperate with their curt commands to lower his hands from his features and give his audience a good look. He'd had nothing but his palms and fingers to be a mask. Then they'd threatened to cut his hands off, and Erik couldn't reason existing and not being able to play his music again. The idea alone won the battle. Music had been his solace as always, but when his captors had learned of his talents with his violin, they'd thrown new threats to convince him to play and sing, to exploit himself for their gain. …And he'd done it because enough lashings from a crude whip had broken him to their will.

A discontented huff left his lips with every cruel recollection. He couldn't decide if it had been a greater humiliation to expose his face or his talents. The face was nothing worthy of value, but the music… And he'd been forced to give it away to an undeserving audience who'd leered and heckled at every pitch. It was a disgrace to consider. Music…his one ally and constant, and he himself had cheapened it with ruses. Magic, they'd called his little tricks, but he'd done it purposely to destroy what should have been pure and glorious. His tormentors did not deserve to know anything so wonderful, and as the tricks took center stage, music stayed his sanctuary that no one could touch.

But his _magic_ had also caught the attention of Damian. At the time, Damian had been drawing people from every nearby county with his skills and finesse. Erik's talents had earned an enemy with little effort at all. It hadn't been an unthinkable surprise when the Gypsy had handed him the key to his freedom, …but what was freedom but more limitations? The world was a vicious place to those who did not fit the standard mold. Never a kind glance, never a gentle word, never a tender touch…until Christine. _She_ was the one who had taught him what living was all about. She made human lives have value. It was difficult to regret his sins when every one had put him on the path that would eventually cross hers.

_Selfish_, an inner voice named him. Ah, that voice. Most people called it _conscience_, but Erik's version was too logical to be moral. It didn't see right and wrong so much as the bigger picture. What was the occasional life taken in the scheme of things? What did one person matter in _his_ world? …Perhaps his perception was selfish, but did it make him _evil_?

The term hung like a storm cloud over his head. Evil… The devil was evil; he knew that much. The devil led people to their damnations and made sin seem pleasurable and coveted. Erik was doubtless his own future was built of fire and brimstone, but that was the afterlife. He was determined to shape a decent present first. Christine was the epicenter of his every plan. Tonight he'd been closer to her than ever before, a breath from an embrace, one motion from molding her body to his and redefining his definition of _complete_. And _he_ had considered it perfection. _He_ had wanted and was tempting her to surrender with him. …_Selfish, selfish, selfish_! …_Evil_.

There was a fire dwindling in the hearth that Erik didn't remember lighting. He moved mechanically about the house, too lost in the sea of his thoughts to regard a single action. Eventually, motion brought him to the couch, and at some unrealized point, he set his head against the cushions. Sleep took it as an open invitation and ensnared him in its web. He never could remember the moment he let go of consciousness, but every dream that arose was too heavy to forget.

Faces flickered on the screen of his mind, every life he'd taken and carried no guilt for. They suddenly coagulated as one mass of feeling and attacked his subconscious. _Evil_. The word played in a rotation of syllables with _monster_ until they were both believed and accepted as fact. _Evil monster_. He whimpered in the midst of a dream to bear the title's weight. He was an evil monster.

Murder was his mind's subject of choice, every crime recalled to its most minute facet until he was surrounded in it, until he felt necks snapping in his hands, heard the cries of terror and pain, the gasp of a final breath. He relived those heinous moments, and for the first time, called them sins. Eventually, strangers faded away, and he was left with visions of Christine crying over a broken dream of angels. The devil worked in lies, promises of grandeur and pleasure…

When Erik awoke, he felt an unfamiliar sensation on the surface of his face. Tears…trapped beneath the mask and stinging deformed skin as they pooled in the creases between unnatural scars. Jerking the mask away with trembling fingers, the tears tumbled free and trickled from his jaw-line on their rapid descent. A few suffocated as they found the open gaps of nostrils without a nose to hinder their entrance, and he abruptly sat upright with a gasp and a cough.

What had he done? A lifetime laden in ugly sin and revenge. He counted the number of lives who'd crossed his path, and the majority were his victims. It was a sobering fact. He couldn't touch lives without destroying them.

Christine was no different. In the Gypsy camp, he'd purposely destroyed and contaminated the beauty of music so none of his ignorant audience could share it. Was he not doing the same with Christine? Destroying her, tainting the purity that should have been love with sins meant to gain her and keep her for him alone? He was filling the sacredness of love with his own jealousy and temper, the selfish desire to rid the world of her Vicomte simply because he was a viable opponent to her heart, the violent outburst of his rage culminating in a chandelier's fall… Good God, he _was_ an evil monster. It was not just an appellation granted by those he'd wronged in memory. He fit its letters, and the realization choked his lungs with its crushing fists.

He wanted love; he didn't know _how to_ love. He was suddenly unsure he even knew _what_ love was. His interpretation was as selfish as his crimes. He wanted Christine, but he wanted to steal her from the world and bury her in the dark with him, assuage his loneliness with her company, and he'd never once considered _he_ wouldn't be enough to make up for all she'd lose. He believed his so-called _love_ would fill the holes his desperation would carve into her life. He'd take the sun and the world, her acquaintances and ties to social strings, but _he loved her_. Couldn't that mean more and make sacrifices into blessings? One glimpse of her soul in that cemetery left him sure he could have her if he wanted, but was it a sin to take her? Another selfish crime for an evil monster?

Stumbling to his feet, he had one overriding thought: he had to see her. His past was an abomination, but he'd be damned if he'd put his vices upon her. A monster with the face of death… Could _anyone_ love such a creature? Or was her compassion meant to be her downfall as his misguided attempt to love her tainted her very soul? He had to find out, and replacing his mask as if it gave strength back to him, he fled the underground with flustered steps and terror in his heart.


	3. Chapter 3

Well, I have the final proof of "Manifestations of a Phantom's Soul" volume 2 in my hands, and it will be available on amazon this upcoming week. Thank you to everyone who eagerly asked for more stories! You guys are truly my greatest inspiration!

Chapter Three

"Come on, mademoiselle. Give us a song."

The request came from one of the gentlemen in attendance at the Vicomte's mansion. Christine couldn't recall his name with too many introductions and an evening of forced social graces playing out in endless minutes. Adopting a fake smile and sugarcoated humility, she shook her head and replied, "Not tonight, monsieur."

"If you wish for a performance, go and see her at the opera," Raoul stepped in to insist. "Imagine the nerve of wanting a free preview!"

Meeting Christine's gaze, he gave her a fond smile, careful to keep affection from the surface. Ah yes, because in this setting, she could not be his chosen and loved fiancée; no, she had to be the opera diva invited to the Vicomte's party as if it were a privilege she wasn't entitled to own. Too many in this class knew her face for her to disassociate from her true identity. She couldn't pick up a guise and play a fine lady, but it was no great sin to be the Vicomte's guest. His peers might speculate the truth of their relationship, but they would never speak a bad word against him…until the engagement was announced. Then…well, then the word 'scandal' would be the only one on their lips.

"Please sing," one of the ladies beseeched. "It isn't often we have a real performer in our midst."

It _seemed_ a compliment, and perhaps it was while Christine kept her place as their inferior. The elite were a strange clique. They doted on talent, and as a part of a well-rounded education, even encouraged their youths to sing or play an instrument…in the parlor. Once any of their class set foot on a stage, they dropped from the top tier of their hierarchy nearly to the bottom, maybe a notch above beggars in the street. It wasn't a 'respectable' profession, …and yet the rich were the opera's principle patrons. It made no sense.

"You can't be shy about it!" another lady remarked. "It's what you do every day. Come on. Just one song."

They said it like it was so easy! Just open her mouth and _sing_. If only that were the case. In her mind, she could practically hear the tirade Erik would be giving, cursing the ignorance of the upper class in the field of the arts. There would never be a single consideration among them that the voice needed to be warmed up before it could be stretched to such heights. Yes, Erik would rage first at her awaiting audience and then at _her_ and insist if she dared trivialize her talent and obey, she was betraying music. He'd always made music into a god worth worshipping. One should be reverent and pious in Erik's interpretation and respect the sanctity of music above all else. He'd tried to instill his convictions into her mind, and though she'd never understood his extreme, some of his passion had stuck and coated her veins.

Shaking her head, she softly protested, "I'd really rather not." As disappointment became more pleadings, she continued, "It's not that-"

"All right!" Raoul suddenly interjected, leaping to his feet and holding up his hands to his group of comrades. It seemed he intended to snap at everyone watching for their behavior, and Christine wondered if music was too much of a reminder of the previous night and an exchange in a cemetery that she flushed with guilt merely to consider. But his solemn expression transformed into a toothy grin as he replied, "You've talked me into it!"

Casting a wink at Christine that she laughed to accept, Raoul rushed to the front of the room, swatting one of his friends on the shoulder and motioning that he follow. Within the minute, he had accompaniment on the piano as he stood before the group and began to sing, flashing smiles at Christine with every phrase.

Oh, the charm of that man! It had only grown since childhood. The first twinkle in his blue eyes had stolen her heart, and now to be the object of his little serenade should have swelled affection to its bursting point. …_Should have_. It bothered her that though she found delight in his antics, they didn't move her. No, she didn't feel that tingle through her skin or tremble inside to have such adoration as hers. She felt _nothing_ and hated herself for it.

The Vicomte seemed to be enjoying his impromptu performance. He had no great musical talent Christine could uncover, but at least he was on pitch and proud of that point. His parlor song was no virtuosic masterpiece. The range was limited, the melody redundant; Erik would have made some rude comment about its simplicity, proclaim a child could have devised something better with no effort at all, probably insist the Vicomte should keep his focus on his fortune and never hope to even graze real talent with his fingertips.

Christine's smile blossomed merely to predict Erik's fierce reaction, and as that curve of lips dragged a resonant list of beats from her heart, she chastised herself. There was her soul-felt reaction, inspired with one thought of her once-dubbed angel, but at the front of the room, Raoul obviously believed _he_ brought it out of her and beamed brighter in his song. Bad technique, that was her sudden conclusion because his exuberant smile widened his tone and made it ugly. Erik would never have let _her_ get away with such a faux pas… _Erik _again.

Melancholy built in her chest and dropped the grin she'd worn. Erik's presence in her mind was nothing new and certainly not suddenly apparent because of his appearance at the cemetery. He was _always_ there, the shadow she kept trying to force to the backdrop. _Live in the sun_, her inner voice insisted. _Live your life, Christine_. But for some reason, she could never quite obey.

The Vicomte's wobbly tenor swayed on its high note, and as he and his group of friends chuckled and made light of something that would have been a travesty in her world, Christine feigned a matching expression and hid behind it like a mask. Her hollow eyes watched Raoul accept accolades all around while her mind lingered in a cemetery with another man.

Oh God, why couldn't she get Erik out of her head? She felt like a betrayer to every pleasant emotion she shared with Raoul because they were never _enough_. They were mundane and lackluster when she'd already learned there was _more_. Emotions could sing and sore and swell to suffocate every breath; why did she only know such things with the wrong man? She _should_ feel such things for Raoul. …Why didn't she?

As the thunderous appreciation died away, Raoul came to her side, catching her hand and drawing her to her feet beside him. Dragged back into the present moment, she gave him a warning look. Did he realize he was making a clear and blatant statement in front of too many prying eyes? …Obviously, he did.

Grin never disappearing, he spoke over stares brimming in gossip, "And _that_ is how it is done, my love. Perhaps you could return the sentiment and serenade _me_ in your next performance on the stage. …Or better yet, just do me the honor of marrying me sooner rather than later. I think it's time we made it official and public, don't you agree?"

It was a bit late for her to protest with agape expressions all around, but Raoul's smile was genuine and rooted to the heart beaming in his blue eyes as he drew her captured hand to his lips and pressed a tender kiss to her knuckles. An engagement thrown into society's face, and he only seemed to care about her response. She should have taken that as the most amazing gift. …_Should have _again.

The rest of the evening rushed before her eyes in a blur. She felt as if life encircled her in its whirlwind, and though her body followed its spinning motion, her mind was never attached. Congratulations were all around, fake pleasantries, the _right_ words even if the true bitter ones would come once out of her presence. The only sensible realization through the haze of her thoughts was that Raoul had just destroyed his reputation _for her_, …and she couldn't get another man out of her head.

Stares read her motions at every second, latching onto her every pore with their bites, and in the center of their sting, she felt something unexpected, something she convinced herself was a figment of a desperate imagination. _Erik_… He was the only one she'd ever known who could caress with his eyes, and she felt…touched. 

* * *

Raoul dubbed it pure torture to allow Christine to leave his home that night as his party dispersed. She was about to slip out after the last of the ladies and gentlemen, but he caught her hand and kept her a second longer.

"You're not upset with me, are you?" he asked, trying to read the answer in her expression, but unable to find it. A curtain was in the way, separating her blue eyes from her thoughts; he was given the girl on the audience's side, never the one behind its velvet partition.

"Of course not," she replied with a small smile, but he knew better. This was the façade, and he wondered when he'd stopped being able to dismantle it. …It seemed about the time of a chandelier's fall. Glass had shattered, and she'd built herself a wall in cement.

"Christine." His concern was something he never built his own wall around; it was impossible when _she_ was its inspiration. Weaving his fingers between hers as if desperate for a firmer hold, he brought his free hand to her curls and delicately brushed a few silken coils. He touched her, and yet she didn't seem to feel it.

"I should go," she said with a gentle grin; he saw a porcelain doll standing before him. So beautiful, so fragile, …so empty in her veneer. He was doubtless a maelstrom churned behind the glass expression. Why could he not be swept in its tide? He had to live on the outside in the world of reality and only take what she'd freely give him.

"Stay a little longer," he pleaded and wished she'd look deep enough to glimpse his urgency.

She laughed, and he heard a hollow corridor of sound. "I think we've caused enough of a stir tonight, dear boy. If anyone suspects I stayed behind for an un-chaperoned rendezvous, any shred of dignity we still possess will be gone."

"Oh, who cares about dignity?" he teased with a chuckle. "I just tossed the extent of it out the window, and I have no care about it. Stay, Christine."

But she shook her head, and the curls in his hand slipped between his fingers to claim their freedom. "I have an early rehearsal tomorrow. …Goodnight, Raoul."

Longing needed a kiss, something to validate emotions he felt easing from his grasp as fluidly as curls, but he was too afraid. _Afraid_ to kiss his fiancée! It was ridiculous, but he knew if he dared and saw only the same hollow expression on her beautiful face, it would kill him. So he settled for a gentle caress to her cheek, …one he was also sure she never felt.

"Goodnight, my love." He watched her leave him without even a glance back at his silhouette. It was rejection without a single word, and he was left with its resonant sting.

With an undeniable ache in his heart, he strode back to the abandoned parlor. Sleep was going to be only a desperate wish tonight when his spirit felt so unsettled. Christine could set him right. …Christine _wouldn't_ set him right.

The past six months felt wasted. Everything had shifted in one night, a night _he_ looked back on for a kiss on the rooftop. If he asked Christine about that night, he knew she would look back and focus on a chandelier's fall instead. His token of love was secondary, it seemed, to a monster's violently passionate outburst. For the horror of lives lost, there was also the reality that it was the ultimate reaction of a desperate heart. Raoul couldn't live up to such drama when he was never going to forget _morality_ existed. He recognized limits that _should_ _be_ set for every human being in the world, but evidently, Opera Ghosts were permitted leniencies. It didn't seem fair.

Losing a desolate sigh, Raoul glanced to the spot where Christine had sat. He loved her as much as he was capable, and perhaps he couldn't feel to the extent of a disfigured murderer. Perhaps a sense of right and wrong put boundaries on how maddened the emotions could explode in a heart. He wasn't going to _kill_ to prove he loved. It was a ludicrous way of thinking, and it scared him. Christine _wanted_ to be loved to a magnitude where sense no longer existed and conscience was smothered from speaking its piece. Raoul's better judgment said it again: he'd never be enough for her.

"I never thought _you_ would resort to my tactics in hopes of winning her heart."

Raoul flipped about to the ajar terrace door, and his eyes grew wide to watch shadows elongate and peek inside as the monster added in a taunt, "Serenading her? Music, Monsieur Vicomte? One would think you'd know _music_ would only remind her of _me_."

A tremor of fear ran through Raoul, even as he fought to give no inkling of it away. No, he couldn't show any intimidation to a monster just looking for a point of weakness. Picking up his wavering bravado, he retorted, "Maybe I was hoping to give her a better source of inspiration, one without _pain_ attached."

To his surprise, Raoul saw his words strike and leave their own scar behind. It seemed there _was_ a way to wound a monster whose reputation made him larger than life; the right words were more deadly than a sword.

"Pain is my legacy, it seems," was his somber reply, and for as much of a hindrance as the mask was, it showed its wear and a desolation to match the colors in blue and green eyes. "Do you have any idea why I came here tonight, monsieur?"

Raoul gave a nonchalant shrug and declared, "Not to kill me, I hope, because if that is your plan, you will have quite a battle on your hands. I have no intention of being _your_ victim, Monsieur Opera Ghost."

Erik summed him up in a single look and saw right through his enacted courage. If murder was his intent, it wouldn't have taken much effort, and simply recalling an announcement of engagement overheard from the terrace ignited the urge. It would have been so easy to rid the world of the rival in his way, and if he were still functioning with only the narrow scope of his vision before his eyes, he would have taken that selfish route and known no remorse for it. But now…he was interpreting himself through others' eyes, and from the Vicomte's viewpoint, he saw an evil monster desperate to steal the woman he loved. Any hatred in the room was justified when the lingering presence of one woman was between them.

"I am no ghost, Monsieur Vicomte," he flatly stated. "I am a man little different from yourself. My greatest misfortune is that I cannot prance about the world as its integral member and play by the rules to gain the things I desire."

"Christine," the Vicomte filled in for him. "You must murder and lie to open doors into her life. She told me what you did, called yourself the Angel of Music, used her father's fairytales from our childhood to manipulate her. How _dare_ you? Her father was everything to her, and you cheapened his memory with your farce."

"I do not need to justify my actions to _you_," Erik spat, regaining his arrogant stance. "But not a thing I have done where Christine is concerned was malevolently inspired. You ignorant boy! You have your face and your money to appeal to anyone you meet. You have no idea what it means to be confined to the shadows. For her, I _was_ that angel, and I have no regret for it."

"You _should_!" Raoul suddenly shouted, and any hesitant concern for his own well-being evaporated with the mention of Christine. "An angel that never existed claimed her heart and then broke her before I had a chance. It's unfair. I would give her the world, but it will never amount to a fairytale of a self-proclaimed angel who is really nothing more than a murderer."

The Vicomte watched every word make another assault, and his mind's eye created the true heinousness of that hideous face. Part of him longed to lay blame without a mask to cushion the blow, to heave accusations at soft, distorted flesh and leave invisible scars to match the ones already present. He himself was allowed nothing but a brave pretense to hide behind; why should his enemy have a mask as a shield? It was nothing but another lie.

But the next words spoken were the ones that chilled the Vicomte to his bones. "You know you're going to lose her, don't you?"

Raoul wanted to lash out, to insist the masked monster was wrong and that Christine _loved_ him, but as much as it hurt, he didn't argue. He simply replied, "She could have loved me…"

"…She still can."

Pain became suspicion with a bizarre inkling of gratitude before Raoul chose disbelief. "No. I saw you both in the cemetery, and I saw a love I don't want to admit exists because once I do, I'll lose every hope I have. I keep telling myself that if I show her how devoted I am, how deeply I adore her, she'll wake out of the trance you put her in and _be_ Christine again. If I don't _try_, what do I have left?"

Erik felt an ache to the deepest recesses of his soul, but he answered with forced composure. "In the end, you'll have Christine, and this will all seem a nightmare in between." Never discrediting the Vicomte's continued skepticism, he bid without doubt, "She loves me, and I know if I play the game the way I wanted and intended to, I could have her as mine, but…I'm a monster, monsieur. You said it yourself. I'm selfish…and _evil_. What do I have to give her but a life of ostracism and darkness? I saw what you did tonight. You have up your world for her; I _can't_ do that. My world is shadows and solitude, and if I gave it up, I'd be giving her an existence full of cruelty and vindictive tongues. She would be judged as mercilessly as I am, and…she doesn't deserve that."

He hated revealing his musings to someone he envied so much, but he couldn't be selfish anymore. He'd watched Christine all during the Vicomte's party. No, she didn't belong in that world either, but she could. As a Vicomtesse, she'd have the power to carve a place for herself, and as much as he loathed considering the Vicomte at her side, he knew the Vicomte would help her. He'd proven it with his public vows this very night.

"So what will you do?" the Vicomte demanded, curt and obviously not believing him. "Gracefully bow out of her life? Disappear again? You tried that already. Good God, you practically dropped a chandelier on her head, and you were _still_ in her mind. No matter what I've done, for six months, she's been a mystery to me. I can't even chip away at the wall around her heart; somewhere inside, I think she always knew you'd come back. And is that what I will be privy to for the rest of our lives?"

"She still carries this undying belief in fairytales and their happy endings, that the world must be set to right at a story's end. Her innocence will always make her view things through rose-colored lenses," Erik said softly, knowing he was setting the final bricks into place. "Well, I will make sure she sees the truth and views me the way everyone else does before I leave. You think my manipulations are the reason she won't dub me a monster; I have one more that will change the game completely. I will show her the monster she refuses to accept. It's the only way."

"How?"

"A plot already in motion. My opera, monsieur. I wanted it to be a grand gift for Christine, a gesture of my affection. To script her something so brilliant to sing and mold her into the prima donna she was born to be… Now I will use it to portray my own damnation. It will be a greater drama than the stage could hold. The culmination of a monster's distorted soul… But I need your help. If you want Christine's love, you will concede and play my victim for one night, and in the end, I vow she will flee my presence and leave with you. All I ask in return is one promise."

Raoul had only a fleeting worry that he was making a deal with the devil, but he squashed its warning and declared, "Anything you want, monsieur. Now tell me what you will have me do."


	4. Chapter 4

I'm beyond thrilled to announce that "Manifestations of a Phantom's Soul" volume 2 is now available on amazon for anyone who is interested. It's 10 stories already posted and a couple from my archives. I owe a huge thank you to everyone supporting my stories and always wishing for more. I appreciate it so much! You guys really keep me going!

Chapter Four

It was a masterpiece. Every note on the page, every sweeping melody, every novel technique. Christine was in awe through the length of rehearsal, humbled to have the opportunity to perform Erik's opera. He'd composed it for her; she had no doubt as her role stretched her capabilities and showcased her talent. He knew her voice and its scope and had clearly wanted to display it.

The opera was half a conversation between them. Challenges were laid in her path, feats to overcome, and she could hear Erik's voice in her inner ear, the angel always present. His teachings were the very basis of her technique, and memories of their time together held answers and guidance.

She sang his music with heart and soul in the forefront for the first time, desperate to earn his pride or even his acknowledgment, but though she was doubtless he was the ever-present shadow in her periphery, he never broke the boundary between their worlds to come for her. Disappointment carried on her every breath, but she was never allowed to show it, giving only smiles to Raoul when he'd make his appearance at the theatre to take her home. Their engagement was the height of gossip from the opera house through the entire city of Paris, and how ridiculous was it for her to be secretly pining for another man, the _wrong_ man, when she was practically inside a fairytale?

The show was days away, and as dress rehearsal ended and Raoul hadn't yet arrived to escort her, Christine slipped outside with a group of chirping ballerinas. She'd never quite fit into the role of proper ballerina when she'd worn the toe shoes, never able to keep up with them onstage or off as their continuous prattle moved from one topic to the next without pause, but she did consider them friends. She was grateful her promotion to prima donna hadn't deterred them from seeking her company. …But then again when one was the current brunt of their most exciting gossip, she imagined her every word was only fueling their flame. They'd wanted to hear every detail of the Vicomte's proposal and then all about his friends and the extravagance. She did not have to exaggerate a single syllable; they hung on her every word as if they couldn't get enough.

"Oh, Christine, it sounds like a dream," Cecile gushed with moony eyes. "I could only wish to be as lucky as you!"

"You won't be," Jammes stated flatly and burst Cecile's blissful bubble. "Have you any idea how rare it is for a gentleman of title to marry a performer? We are doomed to dalliances with the elite and stagehands for husbands."

Cecile cringed her disappointment. "I could make a very believable lady if given the opportunity. Imagine me at one of those parties in a silk gown with jewels in my hair…" Her expression grew dreamy, and Jammes rolled her eyes melodramatically.

"Ignore them," Meg insisted as she inched close to Christine's side. Of all the girls in the _corps de ballet_, Meg had been her closest confidante. She knew about the angel, and as she surveyed Christine, she seemed to seek the parts Christine had no intention of sharing. "Not every girl longs to be a Vicomtesse," she said, and Christine wasn't surprised at her intuition.

Cecile loudly scoffed her disagreement. "Speak for only yourself, Meg Giry! I would take the title of Vicomtesse and cling with my fingernails if I could! And who knows? All I need to do is attract the right set of eyes."

Meg giggled behind a dainty hand. "You better attract more than just his _eyes_, Cecile! I don't think his title _or_ his pocketbook will be in his eyes."

"Oh, laugh away! When I am a fine lady living in my mansion house, none of you will be invited to tea! …Well, maybe you will be, Vicomtesse Christine, but the rest of you can just _soak_ in your envy!"

Cecile was a step from prancing away when a voice caught the attention of all the girls. "Care to learn your future, young mademoiselle? Perhaps find out if a title is in the cards?"

Christine's wariness kept her at the back of the group as the girls approached the stranger with little hesitation. A Gyspy, that much was obvious, the man was half-cast in evening shadows, and though he grinned in invitation, Christine sensed something she couldn't quite trust.

The little ballerinas' giggles echoed about as they eagerly vied for the Gypsy man's attention, desperate to find out what Fate had in store. He drew forth a deck of cards, and as Christine peeked nervously over Meg's shoulder, she studied the foreign pictures on their surfaces. She'd seen similar sets during the days she'd spent traveling the country with her father. He'd performed in the midst of Gypsy carnivals for coins, and she'd spied at the tents of the fortunetellers, wondering in her naïveté if such people were truly molded in magic. Now she knew better than to accept anything that sounded like a fairytale without questioning first; an angel had taught her that.

Without a qualm, each of the ballerinas took a turn, handing over coins for a glimpse into their futures. The card they drew supposedly was the key, but Christine eavesdropped and deciphered nothing but generic statements that could be interpreted in many different ways. The Gypsy was telling them everything they wanted to hear, and Christine's better sense dubbed it a sham.

"What about you, mademoiselle?" the Gypsy asked after he ran out of gullible ballerinas.

Christine shook a doubtful head. "No, thank you, monsieur. I think I shall keep my future a mystery."

"That's ignorant," Jammes decided, still smiling after her card hinted a bright path full of fame to come. "How much better to be prepared! Come on, Christine. Don't get all high and mighty on us already."

"Yes, Christine," Meg insisted, laughing lightly. "Do something silly with us, and let us pretend for a minute that you are not making your way up the ladder of success and leaving us behind."

There was a kernel of truth in Meg's teasing that Christine took to heart. Prima donnas typically did not dally about with the ballerinas, and Vicomtesses had circles of only 'acceptable' acquaintances. Even if Christine preferred to go against the standard molds, her friends obviously assumed they were about to lose her.

The thought had her reaching into her pocket and seeking a coin. She prayed this so-called fortune was quickly spoken lest Raoul arrive and find her paying a swindler for lies. He wouldn't understand it was an obscure form of female bonding; he'd just laugh and call her ridiculous. …And naïve. That felt like the greatest insult of all.

Dropping a coin into the Gypsy's open palm, she watched him shuffle the cards anew and fan them out before her, all their secrets yet hidden. Without a thought, she grabbed one in the middle and handed it to him, arching a brow skeptically as he flipped it over and scrutinized its picture.

The Gypsy's lips curved into a wide smile. "Here now. This is a lovely one." His dark eyes lifted to Christine, smile broader still as he bid, "You have a great love story on your doorstep, mademoiselle, the likes of which most people could only hope to know. It's a rare occurrence in this world to find one's perfect match. Soul to soul. Heart to heart. You are quite fortunate."

"Christine Daaé, you lucky girl!" Cecile interrupted excitedly. "Not only do you have a Vicomte for a fiancé, but he is also your perfect match! It's so amazing that it almost isn't fair!"

Perfect match… Christine was hesitant to grant such an appellation to the Vicomte. _A great love story_… Sense wanted to protest that the Gypsy had likely overheard their conversation and knew she was engaged, but her heart contradicted and said she _knew_ she had a perfect match, heart and soul, …and it wasn't the Vicomte.

"Mademoiselle…Daaé?" the Gypsy questioned, his intrigue as bright as his grin. "Christine Daaé?"

"Yes?" she replied, retaining suspicion.

"I know you."

"Everyone does," Meg spoke up with a nonchalant shrug. "She's the diva."

"Not from the opera," the Gypsy replied. "No, I saw you when you were just a little thing, lolling about in your father's shadow. I doubt you remember me, but I remember _you_. Your father boasted on and on about his daughter's beautiful voice, and now look at you, all grown and an opera diva besides!"

A more intent perusal of the Gypsy brought her no memory of his face. "And…we've met before?"

"Not officially. I was employed in a carnival, and I had the privilege of seeing your father play his violin. Damian," he greeted, extending his dirty hand, and though merely their class separation said she should not accept, she abhorred the idea of seeming rude to anyone and conceded to the furtive contact.

"Christine," Meg warned as she drew her hand free, and all the ballerinas stared wide-eyed in sudden suspicion. It was almost amusing to Christine. They'd handed over their money without a single doubt in the Gypsy's character, but now that he'd made a valid claim, they were on guard.

"It's all right," Christine half-heartedly assured. "Monsieur Damian is simply recalling my father's vagabond days. In a way, I suppose we do know each other." Forcing a small smile, she told the Gypsy, "It is a pleasure to find anyone who remembers my father and his music. Now if you will excuse me, monsieur. My fiancé will be here within the moment, and he will be worried if I am not awaiting him at the opera entrance."

It was a flimsy excuse to be free of an uncomfortable situation, but Damian nodded and smiled at all the girls in his cunning manner. "Of course. A delight to read your fortune, my lovelies. Take them to heart. Oh, …and be careful around the opera house. I've heard rumors about a ghost. I wouldn't want to learn any of you became his next victim."

A collective shudder went through the ballerinas with mention of the ghost, and though Christine never replied, her dubious judgment of the Gypsy only grew. But…he couldn't tie her to the Opera Ghost's antics; Raoul had taken precautions to disassociate her name from the drama. As far as anyone knew, Erik was only a madman acting on insanity. …No one would even consider _love_ was involved.

The suspicion among the ballerinas, however, evaporated simply to have someone to gush melodramatically to, and high-pitched voices overlapped in their zeal for Opera Ghost gossip.

"It's terrifying-"

"He's hideous-"

"A monster who kills-"

The Gypsy's interest was evident as he quickly demanded, "Have you seen his face?"

"If we did, we wouldn't be here to speak of it, monsieur," Meg replied matter-of-factly. "The ghost _kills_ anyone who sees him."

Christine was the only one who could have protested that fact and been right, but she ducked her eyes and grabbed Meg's arm, tugging anxiously. "We should go, Meg."

"Don't be such a worrywart, Christine. We're _outside_. He can't touch us here."

…Except in cemeteries in the shadows, it seemed. Then touch could apply, but maybe that was only if she begged for it…

Pushing the thoughts away, she tugged again. "Raoul will be here in a moment, and I'd rather not wait alone."

"Oh, I see," the Gypsy interrupted with a chuckle Christine considered too enthusiastic for a conversation about ghosts and death. "The Opera Ghost has you all in a tizzy with his antics. Are you scared of him, Mademoiselle Daaé?"

"No," Christine answered immediately, "but we are no authority on ghosts, and it isn't fair for us to gossip over hearsay. It's best to let the ghost be."

This time when she pulled, Meg conceded and went with her with the others not far behind.

"Christine, it's all right," Meg assured. "We don't have to be afraid out here. He haunts the opera house, remember? I don't think specters can hover over street corners."

Shooting her a look, Christine retorted, "I'm tired of talking about the ghost! If he rules the opera house, it is because we let him take over and surrendered _sense_ to be his victims."

"Sense is being _afraid_," Meg replied. "He dropped the chandelier, for God's sake! The Opera Ghost obviously isn't a friendly spirit seeking a congenial conversation over tea and pastries. He's a _monster_."

"Why are you so certain of that?" She asked it before judgment caught up and stopped her. "You don't know why he dropped the chandelier. Everyone assumes it was just for carnage, but…what if there was a reason behind it?"

"Like what?" Meg inquired, skeptically arching a golden brow. "He saw a spider, and a chandelier seemed the best tool to squash it? You're giving insanity too much credit, Christine. Of course, a reason makes him less of a threat, but I don't think there is one. He's just _crazy_ without deeper levels to decipher. …But I guess we'll know for sure soon enough."

"What do you mean?"

"The opera," Meg predicted, ominous and without doubt. "Haven't you pondered that there must be more to it than a performance? He has to have something planned. God help us."

Christine's brow furrowed. No, she hadn't considered it was about anything but the music. The opera was Erik's magnum opus, and surely, it was his dream to see it performed, but… Her mind churned in her thoughts. Perhaps there was something more to it, and once again she was being naïve not to suspect. But Erik was keeping his distance. Any underlying plot was going to have to be learned with everyone else on opening night. Christine couldn't decide if she should dread it…or anticipate it. _A great love story_… 

* * *

It was torture to spy rehearsals for his opera and remain the lurking spirit in the shadows. Erik watched Christine sing melodies he'd composed for her, savoring the colors of her voice as she made his fantasies into reality. His inner ear had been a poor substitute in comparison. It had granted the voice he'd once shaped and molded, but it couldn't grant the emotion she was pouring into every phrase, the gleam in her blue eyes, the way her body moved as if the music streamed into the channels of her veins and coursed her bloodstream. It was exceptional, every detail of a dream playing before his eyes. Nothing had prepared him for how deeply he was moved every second he watched her grace the stage.

Regret gnawed at his heart. What was he doing? He was about to surrender everything he'd ever prayed could exist in a cruel world. Love… She _loved_ him, and he was about to give it up.

The selfish part of him ached to renege on his plot with the Vicomte. After all, he owed the Vicomte no allegiance. He was _giving_ him Christine, and why? Because he was _supposed_ to consider himself a monster? Because the world had carved him a role, and he was determined to play it? He could be so much more…

But then his gaze would wander the features of her face, follow the lines of her body, and truly see her beauty, her perfection, her innocence. He did not deserve such things in his life. He wouldn't know how to care for them correctly and make sure he didn't serrate every fine edge. She was too fragile for his world, too apt to shatter under the right impetus. With the Vicomte, she'd be safe to blossom and wouldn't have to learn what it truly meant to love a monster.

Opening night. The curtain was about to rise on a drama to surpass the theatre's boundaries. Erik was ready to take his place in the rafters, determined to absorb as much of the performance as he could. He adamantly wanted to wait through Christine's big aria in the second act before putting his plans into motion. He needed to hear her and have that memory to relish for the rest of his lonely years, but as he made that choice, the desolation crept into his bones and left a bitter chill. He was about to let her go forever… The finality of it had his legs moving of their own accord, and he dropped into his hidden passages and took a path he'd been avoiding for weeks.

Her voice called him like a siren song.

This was how it had all begun. That voice was his greatest weakness; it could bend and break him with merely the pulsation of its vibrato. Too beautiful for a world so vicious…

She was warming up, fluid scales up and down. It didn't matter; music was secondary to her tone. She could have sung anything, even that she loathed him, called him a monster, and he'd still drop to his knees in reverent worship. He loved the voice _more_ than he loved the girl. The voice took chances. It leapt up to high notes and soared without restraint while the girl who owned it always bore her hesitations. They were the chains that kept her bound to her corporeal world. He wasn't certain she'd ever be able to cut their iron cords and fly.

Scales became more intricate vocalises, and almost timid, Erik peered through his mirrored doorway and sought a vision of her. How often had he stood in this very spot, gazing into her life? He'd devised a place for himself, found a role she could accept, and became it to the most finite point. Despite the innocent lies underneath, he'd been a good angel. Why had the truth washed that fact away?

Her back was to him. She'd chosen her vanity mirror to gaze into as she practiced, and he wondered if she'd done it purposely. Closing him out of a life he never should have touched to begin with. Sense could argue that tonight's drama was just setting things back in order. A monster was a monster after all.

His gaze got tangled in her curls, stuck amongst the silken coils with a desire to delve his fingers into their cloud and transform an intangible caress to a valid contact. The pads of his fingertips tingled with their wanting, but his fantasy was to grab and fist, to muss their flawless layout even if coils went askew and made irregular shapes. To destroy perfection… He hated himself with the realization and only grew more convicted in his plan: Christine would leave tonight with her fiancé, and he would let her go.

Being resolved to the outcome meant his fantasies could be free to run wild and rampant through his brain. If this was to be the last time he looked upon her undetected, he wanted to be consumed in the portrait before him.

In his imagination, he could crawl through the mirror and creep behind her, slide his arms about her waist and drag her back against his chest. She might resist and protest at first, perhaps struggle against his hold, but he'd press his masked face to the side of her silken head and whisper provocative promises in her ear, whisper adorations and _love_ in as many words as language could hold. In his mind, she melted against him and sighed merely to feel his body so close. It was beyond lust and passion's play; it had to be with Christine. He could envision it and know it to be true. She'd burn with desire, but even more, she'd long to soak into his very skin, to join bone and bone, to twine veins like threads. She'd never want to let him go…

The fantasy brought somber tears to his eyes and dropped him back into the present with her voice to catch his fall. She finished another series of scales and suddenly turned to stare at his mirrored hiding place. For that single second, he knew she felt him watching, but he was as silent as a ghost, holding her gaze through a barrier that was only ever transparent from his side. His heart was shown through a window; hers was reflected back to her in glass. Never could all the veils drop and leave heart with heart. Perhaps that should have been his hint that his fantasies would only ever stay fantasies no matter what.

With a breathless huff, he whispered, "It's time."

Erik saw her react, blue eyes deepening their pools as she bid, "Erik?"

But he did not answer. He faded back into the passages and finally sought his place. _Curtain_.


	5. Chapter 5

First, a big thank you to everyone's kind words and support for the release of "Manifestations of a Phantom's Soul", volume 2. You guys keep me going!

And as for this one, I did warn you guys that this was going to take things down a different path. You know how I like to spin things around (sneaky smile :) )

Chapter Five

The opera played out its first act without fault, and though Christine was on guard for _something_ to happen, the worst tragedy so far was the ripped seam of one of the chorus girls, nothing on the scale of tragedy or horror. Still, Christine felt like she was in suspension, waiting for whatever Erik intended, and as she stood in the wings before her Act Two entrance, she relived the scene in her dressing room, dwelling on his presence and wondering just how long it had gone unnoticed.

It was so reminiscent of his angel days, and yet this was the first time in over six months that he'd dared. There was a certain amount of sin and indiscretion attached to peeking into her dressing room now that she couldn't pretend he was anything but a man. It was…intimate, but even as sense condemned him, it felt like a secret shared only between them. She'd never told Raoul about her mirror and certainly had not revealed Erik's presence tonight in the few moments she'd seen the Vicomte before the performance began. No need to stir a boiling pot.

As Christine stepped onstage for her scene, she cast a nonchalant glance to the Vicomte's box. Raoul seemed the nervous one between them, and she was sure he shared Meg's thought that the Opera Ghost had something planned and about to come to fruition. He looked tense in his seat, his fists flexing and un-flexing on the balcony's rail, and Christine tried not to let it sway her performance as she started her aria.

This was _music_. It was so beautiful in its construction and struck a chord inside of her that she hadn't known existed. Her own love for the piece came across in her execution. As music poured out of her, she wasn't only a singer onstage; she was a creator, making notes on a page live and breathe and soar to the heavens above.

For that brief abeyance, she was trapped in a moment where no one existed but her. Everything felt as if it found its rightful place and aligned to perfection. She _was_ music.

And within the seconds that her final high note hit the rafters and then faded to an echo, she was only Christine again, vividly reminded of her very own heart and corporeal body as an angel fell out of the sky and landed center stage before her.

A gasp went through the audience and rustles of motion as many got to their feet and sought paths to exits with fearful glances up at the newly installed chandelier. Christine wanted to call them fools. She'd given a ghost no reason for vengeance tonight; no, she'd given an _angel_ her soul in a song of his creation, and she was awed by the pride he never dimmed in his mismatched stare.

"The student surpasses her teacher," he muttered with a hint of sadness that surprised her. "_Brava_, prima donna. They will all bow to _you_ now. …At least a monster could do _something_ good."

Christine studied that masked face, unnaturally aglow in the stage lights when she was so accustomed to regarding it in shadows. It stuck out in its abnormal oddity, stark and fake when typically, people onstage were vulnerable and exposed. Why could he not be stripped and give up his walls when she had surrendered all of herself to his music?

"You're not a monster," she insisted, but he abruptly shook his head.

"I know what I am. …Shall we show them, Christine? Let's leave no misconceptions behind tonight."

"Don't," she warned with an anxious glance at lingering audience members and performers watching in terror from the wings.

"Why?" he demanded with a harsh chuckle. "Are you ashamed for them to see the monster who loves you? Ah yes, because the mystery is better than the truth. I am ugly and deformed, and merely the fact that I lust after you is a disgrace. The repulsive corpse desperate for your touch. …Let's put an end to the sugarcoated illusions."

Erik regarded no one but Christine as he tore his mask away and felt the stage lights glare garishly on his distorted features. The cries of horror from onlookers were expected. When had it been any different? He'd just brought nightmares out of the subconscious and made them real.

He'd anticipated a similar response from Christine. Horror, fear, humiliation to be a monster's fixation, more reasons to follow his plans and teach himself to forget. It was a shock so great that he shuddered to find none of those things in her unchanged expression. He was confounded and wondered when the impact had dulled its repercussions. …She was _supposed_ to know disgust.

Clenching his jaw in a growl of annoyance, he suddenly grabbed her forearm in a pinching hold and yanked her after him out of spotlights and terror. A quick look was thrown to the Vicomte already en route to the stage before Erik darted into one of his passageways, dragging a girl who did not seem as reluctant as she should have been. She tripped with his fierce pace, but she did not struggle.

Darkness engulfed and stole her sight. He did not bother to light a lantern, even though he knew she did not favor being blind in the shadows. He'd once been overly considerate in hopes of assuaging her every fear. Hope… But hope was dying tonight, committing suicide because it was the _right_ thing to do, and if he made Christine afraid, all the better. It was ease hope's passing if she cowered and hated him, if she cursed his name before she finally left his presence. It would be so much simpler to leave and _know_ it was the right answer if she abhorred his every breath by the end of the night. That would be hope's ultimate destruction.

Christine tried to keep up with his frantic steps, but with nothing but the urgent hand on her arm for guidance, she stumbled and lost a gasp that resounded a hundred times over in the damp corridors. To her surprise, he did not even pause, yanking onward as she fought to regain balance or risk falling against the stone floor.

"Erik, slow down," she called with a voice that wavered and gave her nerves away, but he made no reply that exceeded the erratic breaths echoing back to her. He seemed fixed on their destination, and her nerves grew fringed with anxiety.

She wasn't so certain she could deter whatever he had planned. Before this, love had been the undercurrent to his every movement. She could even argue that dropping the chandelier bore love as its reverberation. Tonight's behavior was verging on manic. He'd revealed his face to all those prying eyes… She hated every person who saw when horror had permeated that theatre, and she hated herself to realize her own initial response had been the same. Horror, fear, a touch of disgust for something she'd never fathomed existing. She called herself _ignorant_ in retrospect and was suddenly determined to change things.

A hard jerk made her gasp as he rushed them through the dark, and he suddenly snapped, "Come on. Keep up."

"You don't have to be so rough," she replied, given no choice but to skip steps to match his longer strides.

In the blindness of dark, she could not gauge his response, and when typically, she'd react according to his temperament, she had no guiding compass and was shocked to a small cry when he halted so fast that she staggered and clutched his shape with her free hand to stop an imminent fall.

"Don't you like it that way?" he snapped. "_Rough_, Christine? I tried _gentle_ and got nowhere with you, so I assumed _this_ was what you wanted. Conviction and domination. I am not a simpering fool anymore, my dear girl, not a pathetic waste for you to twist about your fingers. I've chosen a new role for myself, and I daresay I already like it better if I can _touch_ you all I want without awaiting your _permission_." A grating chuckle played over her skin and made her shudder. "To think I was _afraid_ to touch you! Shy and timid as if I could soil your purity with a single fingertip! Ridiculous! I wanted to play the game like a gentleman, but why? I am not a gentleman; I'm a monster, a beast of lust and longing, a _man_ with a passion that will destroy me if it isn't satisfied."

Though Erik treated every word and motion like blocking on the stage of his preplanned drama, he could not deny that it was easy to fall into his character. It wasn't entirely contrived. It _was_ _he himself_ just without restriction or the constant fear that one wrong move would terrify her. He'd tiptoed on eggshells around the pulsation of his own heart. Tonight…well, the goal was to drive her away, wasn't it? When the projected outcome held only disappointment, he did not stop himself from being swept in emotion's tidal wave.

Without hesitation, Erik drew her to his body by the arm he still held and ignored the gasp she gave even as it resounded the stone walls and burned his ears. His palms pressed flat to the line of her spine, molding her as close as he could, her softness curving to the planes of his torso in a nearness he'd only ever fantasized. Her heart was a racing drum vibrating against his sternum, as frantic as his own echo. He hated that his heartbeat presented the trepidation he claimed did not exist. He _was_ afraid to touch her; even a role could not take away his innocence. He'd never touched anyone…

Darkness hid the shake of his hands and helped him pretend she wouldn't _feel_ the tremors, even though that was unavoidable. Following desire's pull, he dragged his taut hands up her back, his knuckles tickled by the fall of her curls as if they caressed in return. Down again and out, and he captured her hips between pressing palms and fitted her firmer to the telling shape of his wanting. It felt like it had always been the unspoken secret between them. He _wanted her_, but he was never allowed to say so, cushioning the fact with flowery sentiments of his love and devotion. For once, he didn't have to shy away from desire, and although somewhere inside it disgusted him to use something so pure to frighten her, he insisted that he was a monster and this was another means of proving it.

"Gentlemen don't simply _take_ what they want," he rasped out and refused to know shame for the huskiness on his cords. "I was so afraid to _take_, but I don't have to play by the rules like a Vicomte must. I can _take_ and _have_, and no one will argue, not down here where the lights don't shine. In the shadows, it can burn and be our secret."

A soft moan escaped before he could stop it, but it was part of the role, wasn't it? …Was this even a role anymore? Monster didn't feel like monster when she was warm and soft against him, rigid through her muscles and shivering uncontrollably but never fighting. _Shouldn't she be fighting_?

Unable to stop himself, he pressed his unmasked face against her curls and moaned deeper to bear their caress against his scars. It was an intoxication, lust but with an anchor of love, and it consumed him. Desire was the voice working through impulse, and it longed for a kiss. How easy it would have been to steal one under the cover of darkness! She wouldn't refuse; she couldn't, and disgust would have been irrelevant with the dark as a shield. She couldn't see what repulsed her; it was practically encouragement to act.

But…as much as he ached, he couldn't let his body surrender. A kiss was too intimate; the idea alone overwhelmed him and brought a swell of unacceptable fear. It meant his mouth, something that had shamed him his entire life, daring to taste perfection and seeking to be the one thing it never could be: ordinary.

More appalling than being born without a nose and looking like the proverbial corpse dug from his grave was having lips that were grotesquely misshapen, bloated and swollen, dragged beyond the defined barriers of a mouth. When the voice they called an 'angel's' poured out of the seam, it seemed a cruel joke at Fate's hand, irony at its best. He had never fantasized a kiss with Christine because it felt too impossible to be real, something too absurd to even dream. And now though he wanted it, he froze with a fright that was bone-deep and made him shudder in its aftershock. No…a kiss wasn't his to own, but his lips dared to rub against the silken crown of her head, and tears rimmed his eyes as all he could ponder was how unworthy he was to touch her. …Oh God, how was he going to just let this go? He _wanted_ it so much…

Christine couldn't breathe, aware of inhalation and exhalation's reflex in a manner that usually went without acknowledgment. But whenever the motion contradicted the lungs against hers, it formed a meager moment of release between pressing bodies that felt wrong. Her head spun in suffocation until she found a pattern to his sporadic breaths and mirrored it, moving with him so that they never came apart.

This was the embrace she'd been denied in the cemetery, one she'd regretted losing. An urgent compression of body and body with a wish somewhere in the background to be soldered together forever. She was overcome in the sensations racing her veins; they soared above acceptable levels and tensed her muscles as they rippled through her. She'd never known anything could feel like this, that such emotions even existed when it took so much of her to feel them. Nothing mattered that moment but him…_Erik_.

The initial intensity dulled with his continued shivers and shudders against her, half her own by default of shared breath and space. This was Erik, _her Erik_; he was _afraid_, and she adored it because it was _real_, not displaced in the arrogant persona he preferred to play. Timid and unsure, she lifted her quivering arms, suddenly remembering she could _hold him back_, but before she ever closed them about his shape, he gave an angered cry that pierced her eardrums and released her so abruptly that she swayed and gasped as the chilled catacomb air took his place and stung her.

"Erik…" She said his name in a weak whimper as disappointment cut through her. It felt as if she'd been torn in two with his retreat and had to learn how to breathe on her own, and her heartbeat missed its echo so intensely that it brought tears to her eyes. She'd been so certain he'd been in the moment with her, sharing every emotion the same, and now without impetus, he'd reverted to the Opera Ghost role and growled in rage as if it was _her_ fault.

A pleading played on her lips to embrace her again, to fall back into the torrid vortex of emotion where nothing else had room to exist, but she never had the chance to speak. He had her arm in a pinch so sharp she knew it would leave bruises and yanked her onward in the corridors, never pausing even as she tripped in her haste to follow.

As the house came into view, a hint of light streamed out from any crack in a stone façade, and she had a desire to squeeze her eyes shut and not allow it to penetrate the dream perpetrated in the dark. Light was about to betray them both in blazing illumination. She was starting to hate its two-faced games where it made some portraits shine and others into reasons for revulsion. She suddenly craved the dark; it was impartial.

But she never had the chance to pose her case. Erik pulled her out of dream shadows and into the glow waiting with awareness hand in hand. Never a second's pause, the warmth of the sitting room was avoided and with it, scenes of pleasant memories. They'd shared time in that place, creating music, giving up every resentment and disappointment between them for the love of something so much greater. He seemed desperate to bury anything but the thoughts in his own head tonight, and it left her warily on edge as she staggered in the path to her hidden bedroom.

It was a place she'd first visited the night when angels had still flown in her head. The idea of its existence had always left her unsettled. A room he'd arranged for her use, …its entrance concealed to anyone who did not know it was there. She'd harbored an unqualified fear the Opera Ghost had meant for it to be a prison. The _Opera Ghost_ because when the ghost appeared, _Erik_ vanished beneath his arrogant need for control. The Opera Ghost was the only one who still inspired twinges of fear, and tonight she wasn't sure _whom_ she was dealing with.

He practically threw her inside, releasing her abruptly and stalking further into the space with aloof footfalls that sounded heavy upon the carpet. Righting her posture, she surveyed the room nervously. More deceptions. The gilded cage for his precious nightingale. It would have seemed bliss to own such luxury until one realized it had no exit for escape or entrance for a hero's rescue. Trapped inside, a fantasy would be re-scripted into a horror story…if the _Opera Ghost_ were her captor. But if the façade crumbled and _Erik_ remained… Then everything changed.

Her gaze locked on him, and she didn't see the man who'd embraced her so passionately in the dark. Now she saw a demon regarding her with a desire to steal her soul in his cruel expression. It was ugly upon those distorted, corpse-like features, and she wondered if he _smiled_, would he be beautiful instead? …The concept intrigued her as she studied his face. In a smile, those misshapen lips would be drawn wide and form a new picture, perhaps lessen their swollen abnormality. A smile might flicker in a blue and a green pupil and unite two clashing colors; it might be glorious despite its lackluster palette. She was suddenly overcome with an urge to create on those disfigured features, to pick up where God had left off and fix flaws.

With a breath for courage, she traveled the gap between them, raising determined hands, fingers taut and wide in their tingled need to _touch_, to paint new colors and emotions and _feel_ something. His eyes widened with transparent fear, and though he staggered a step back, she did not halt her approach, so certain she could conquer the Opera Ghost and _destroy_ him with her hands and skin as weapons. Before her palms ever grazed his sallow cheeks and gave that healing transformation, he lost a horrified gasp and caught her forearms in vicious fists, his fingernails nipping her flesh in their clawed capture.

"What are you doing?" Erik snapped, rage erupting as he forced her arms out wide and away from him. Anger was impulse and instinct; it was so much simpler to express than the flush of trepid anticipation that swept through his entire body. Oh God, had she intended to touch him? Was it meant to have been _gentle_, …or was it retaliation and attack? He'd carried her off, stolen her from the world; sense called her attempt a fight for her freedom.

With a growl in his chest, he pinned both captive arms behind her and forced her close again, this time without dark to act as a mask. He made her look and truly see and could not begrudge the shudder that raced through her.

"You foolish girl! Did you think to unleash hell against the devil himself? What did you hope to gain with that dramatic assault? Ah yes, attack a man where he is most vulnerable! You wanted to leave your own damage and scar an already scarred canvas. Perhaps I should have let you do your damnedest. I'd rather have _your_ marks than God's. _You_ have just cause; God, on the other hand, is a sadist with a penchant for favoritism. Some He blesses with beauty and fortune…like _you_, my fairest one, and some, like me, He curses to a life of agony. _But_ He ignorantly gave free will, and therefore I can play a god on this level and change my fortune to my liking. I can make your blessings into curses. Your beauty captures the charms of a perfect Vicomte, but it also intoxicates the heinous desires of a living corpse. Perhaps you should start praying to your God that He make you ugly and undesirable instead of wasting thoughts praying for freedom. If I didn't _want_ you, I wouldn't intend to keep you."

As he taunted, he jerked her flush by her pinned arms and forced her hips to his again, giving the threat context and validity. She'd wanted to use her hands as weapons; well, he had something better and far more destructive, and he did not shy away from its revealing presence.

"My desire is an ugly perversion in the light, isn't it, Christine?" he coldly demanded. "Now you can't forget that a deformed monster has his hands on you."

Words felt impossible beneath the heated heaviness of her blush. Every inch of her skin flushed with its fiery spread as Christine watched the flames of passion ignite the features of that corpse's face. She'd wanted to create something pleasant and innocently considered smiles as the utmost in beauty. Desire seemed more beautiful yet, but she couldn't tell him that, afraid of the revelation and everything it would do when it hit the air. She'd never seen desire, never so close and prominently displayed in hungry eyes; it intrigued her in its raw vulnerability. She was afraid of any spark in her bloodstream, but Erik put every one in her view and made an intimacy that was _theirs_ alone.

"I should punish you for being so beautiful," he gasped in husky consonants that breathed over the surface of her skin and left layers of goose bumps.

"I…I'm not," she stuttered in a whisper, and she meant it. She'd never been able to see herself the way Erik did; she considered herself special because of her talents, but certainly not a stunning beauty like some of the others on the stage. She'd always wondered if Erik's definition of beauty was simply askew because of his own deficiencies; perhaps it was just a full and completed face that meant _beauty_ to him, something he would never have.

An urgent groan left his lungs and stirred the air, and she deemed _that_ beautiful. "How dare you lie to me?" he replied in breathless whispers. "You want me to doubt my own eyes and hope it will save you. But I _know_ you are beautiful in the same way I _know_ I am ugly."

"No, no," she whispered, and it was the nearest to an admission her tongue would form.

"No?" he teased, and there was a touch of fondness in his tone that nearly brought a smile to those misshapen lips. She saw the slightest upturn, and she was astounded. "The first time I saw you, I lost my breath. You shine with this incandescent light from the inside out, and it is so glorious. I _prayed_ to be a part of its beam and feel it radiate over my undeserving body. Prayed… I _abhor_ any god who could curse without cause and form me with His merciless hands, but if He listened just once and gave me _you_… I would have repented to my core if He'd granted my heart's one desire, and…"

_And He did_, Erik thought, trailing a tender gaze over her face. It was God's blessing, the first and only in his miserable life, and here he was, giving it away, handing it to another man because he was so certain he'd break it if he kept it.

Forcing his hands to obey and open, he released her and stalked a fitful pace to the tall whitewood armoire, one more detail painstakingly arranged for her. Refusing to listen to his heart's cries, he rummaged through the gowns hanging pristinely inside and drew forth one in a brilliant and blinding white. A wedding gown. It hurt all the more to play this game so close to the truth. The one and only bride he'd ever pondered could be his, and he was going to use _his_ dreams to push her away.

"A fitting end," he said more to himself as his fingers idly caressed the gown's lace trim. Touching something that couldn't _feel_ his skin when he longed to touch _her_… In mere moments, he'd never be able to touch her again. …He'd barely tasted her skin, and was he supposed to be sustained the rest of his life? How could that ever be enough?

Picking up his faltering persona, he attempted to hide its faultline and approached her with the gown held between his fists. His heart begged him to close his eyes and not see the emotion in her gaze. It wasn't loathing; it wasn't disgust or hatred. It was too close to _acceptance_ and _anticipation_. And he knew if he looked at it too long, he'd want it too much and forget he was supposed to destroy it.

"Marriage is permanent and binding. _Forever_," he stated and hoped to find some hint of hesitation, but her expression was gentle as it regarded the wedding gown and its details. "You were supposed to have a prince; well, I've decided a _monster_ will take his place. Does that upset you, Christine? You are to be the Opera Ghost's bride, and a monster will put his accursed hands on you."

"You're not a monster, Erik," she said it without a single waver of doubt, and he hated her for it. Six months before, and he would have longed for such assertion from her, but now… Six months ago, before he'd dropped a chandelier and forgotten to care about the ramifications. Now her conviction just gave more guilt.

"If not a monster, then what am I, Christine? Gentleman is out of the question with a face like mine to dub me a liar. …I cannot even call myself a human being when sin shrouds my soul so completely. Monster fits. Don't pity me for it. I've been called much worse in my lifetime. If monster was the term on your own lips, then it is something I should aspire to be."

Christine refused to let shame take any ounce of resolve away. Staring fixedly at his face, she demanded, "And is that the reason for your behavior tonight? Are you teaching me a lesson for my mistakes?"

"No, for _my_ mistakes," he snapped cruelly. "I never should have fantasized happy endings with a loving wife in my arms. _This_ is realistic. A wife who is half a prisoner. A future I don't leave up to Fate and chance, but make myself. I have accepted that we are on opposite ends of life's spectrum. You are too pure to ever be my equal, but that makes me _need_ you more. I need _all_ of you, Christine, every bit of hatred in your innocent heart and then every bit of love you could ever learn to feel. I intend to be your entire world, and you will be mine, my obsession, my addiction, my salvation. _You_ will consume me, and I will devour you whole. Nothing else will exist or matter, and flawless fiancés with pretty titles will go the way of lost childhood."

Christine was half-convinced he _wanted_ to scare her with words that were almost too overbearing to consider, and though she never looked away, a shiver racked her limbs. There was too much heaviness in the air tonight; she felt as if she could not get a proper breath to find equilibrium. The floor kept shifting beneath her feet and throwing her from her balance. She tried to look and see what he did: a _monster_ with a corpse's face holding a wedding dress before her as if it were iron chains with an impenetrable lock. He expected her to cower, seemed to _want_ it, and when she didn't, he grew angry.

"No pleadings for mercy? …Then I suppose it's time to change into your costume for your greatest performance yet," he growled.

Heaving the wedding gown to the ground in a cascade of white, Erik stalked about her defiantly stable posture. _Monster_… The word played through his mind as his hands delved into the cloud of her curls and found the clasps down the back of her costume. He felt her muscles tense and pushed the image onward, groping material and tugging fierce enough to make it fray and succumb. The shrill cry of ripped fabric shrieked through the room, and Erik stared coldly at the gash he'd left from shoulder blades to waist, exposing the curve of her spine. Her gasp was an echo as she trembled and finally swayed in her stance.

A monster had intentions of stripping her bare and forcing her to dress before him for a fabricated wedding. It would have been the very thing to characterize his persona and undoubtedly would have broken her surprising bravery to shards. But… There was too much skin, too much perfection, too much irresistible beauty. He saw _Christine_: pale white, smooth, tempting in every inch, and his hands, still fisted on either side of that revealing schism, quivered with the need to touch.

All he could think was he was never going to have this, this body he longed to know as intimately as his own. It was _never_ going to be in his care… He was never going to have the chance to touch her again… He might find the image impressed onto his memory, but it would be a mirage. It would evaporate if his fingers ever tried a single graze, but now it was here and tangible. How could he resist it when it was about to be engraved in another man's initials?

Christine couldn't breathe; her lungs ached until a gasp emerged on its own and severed the silence as prominently as torn material. She felt a tingle rack her spine and ignite goose bumps. It was half the chill of the air and half the power of his stare boring into her skin. She peeked nervously over her shoulder, shivering to glimpse the ferocity of his desire, and quickly looked back before he caught her, holding her breath again, waiting for him to act. She locked her gaze on the peachy-pink wall feet away, listening urgently for his approach, for his breaths, for his intentions, but she received nothing until a solitary fingertip emerged from the cushion of her curls and landed upon the nape of her neck. His flesh was cold, but it shot through every vertebra and made them vibrate with the jolt.

A ragged breath met her curious ears, and the finger trembled as it slowly trekked down her back, following the natural curve of her spine and pausing in its dipped alcove so that four other fingers could join in and a full hand could press and imprint. Sense screamed that she should not be permitting this without a protest. This exceeded an earlier embrace when this time skin met skin, and hers was encouraging him. She wanted to grant herself an excuse and claim it was because this spot had never been touched; perhaps it was overly sensitive to any contact… But no, she knew it was _Erik_ inspiring new sensations, and she was as afraid as she was eager for more.

Erik couldn't sever touch, even as his mind reminded that the Vicomte was set to arrive within minutes. He was the other integral member in the arranged drama. He would conclude that Erik had taken his role of monster too far, but he would also be the one who could touch this perfection whenever the whim struck while Erik would burn alone. Erik would never have this again.

With a sudden cry, he dropped to his knees behind her and wrapped shaking arms about her waist to keep her…for the moment, only the moment. This moment she was _his_, and he clung to it as he timidly rested his forehead against her bare spine, sliding lower and lower until his face was cradled in the small of her back. She whimpered, but he ignored it, so certain it must be that waited-for protest finally surfacing.

"Not yet, Christine," he begged in an emotion-laden whisper. "Please…let me hold onto this a moment more."

Tears threatened and stung the corners of his eyes as with a flush of shame he couldn't deny, he turned and delicately touched his disfigured cheek to her flawless skin. Scars felt burned by her natural heat and forever marked deep in their bone structure; he welcomed such a branding.

"A monster loved you," he whispered. "It was real and stronger than anything he'd ever known. Never forget. …All I do is because I love you, Christine. …Love makes the most honest sinners and also the most desperate."

One more breath, and he retreated, staggering to his feet without a single look at her. All he said with bitterness in every letter was, "Put that dress on, and God help you if you disobey me now."

Never even a glance when he was determined to hide abashed tears, he left her alone in her room, closing the door and knowing she had no other way out. He needed to make certain everything was ready. The curtain was about to rise on the final act.

Christine stared after him, the bare flesh down her spine tingling to recall his touch. It might have been his intent to hide tears, but she had proof in a faint teardrop drying on her skin. It lingered long enough for her to feel it burn. She imagined it coating the surface as it soaked inside.

_Love_… She'd never touched his face, and yet she could decipher its etched shapes against her back and create the picture as it must have looked. A self-proclaimed monster holding his beloved, declaring love and yet terrified of it. And she realized if _she_ didn't take the reins and change things, that was all it would ever be.


	6. Chapter 6

Happy October! :)

Chapter Six

Christine was poised anxiously at the edge of her mattress when she heard the door's opening click. Scampering to her feet, she watched wide-eyed as the Opera Ghost strode into the room with a confidence she wasn't sure he actually possessed. More aspects to a fabricated persona. She knew she was right because the instant his mismatched eyes found her, the façade revealed its shoddy build in miniscule fractures. They let the vulnerable heart beneath peer out in an awe that softened his deformed features.

She was a dream existing between reality's molecules, and Erik got lost in the fantasy for a long held breath. Why had he ever posed this plan? It was too close to everything he longed to be real. Christine as his bride, the essence of perfection in her bridal finery. The idea of marriage was _supposed_ to frighten her, but though he glimpsed tremors in her posture, she did not falter to the tears he'd expected. She seemed _calm_, and he hated her for it when he was a mess of nerves.

The Opera Ghost about to lay ultimatums… He had to talk himself back into his part and pick up pieces of an unraveling veneer as he approached and fought not to sweep a passionate gaze over her every satin-encased curve.

"So composed and ready to face your fate," he taunted, needing words to distract his heart. "Where are the pleadings for mercy? Or have you given up already and resigned yourself to defeat? I was actually anticipating tears on your cheeks; they'd glisten and make you lovelier still."

Christine just shook her head, studying his unmasked face as she sought to keep a strand of bravery. She wasn't accustomed to boldness; it was a trait that must have passed her by when adulthood came, but she stayed rooted in place as he neared and stated her thoughts without biting them back. "In all the time we've known each other, you only grow cruel when you're afraid." She saw the assessment rattle him ever so slightly and pushed harder. "Are you afraid of marriage…or afraid of _me_?"

He hesitated and seemed to stop and start a response before snapping, "I think I've been misdiagnosed. _Afraid_," he scoffed and forced a bitter chuckle. "What is there to fear when one holds all the cards? _I_ am the master of ceremonies tonight, and I know how things will end. Fear only comes in ignorance. _You_ are the one between us who has yet to fully grasp my malevolence. I am not _afraid_ of you; I _pity_ you."

The scowl on his deformed features made them contort unpleasantly, but Christine did not look away, adamantly convicted to learn his every expression now that the mask wasn't in place and see how far they stretched the definition of ugly. She was determined never to recoil in disgust again, but she couldn't stop herself from tensing when he grabbed her forearm at her sleeve's laced trim and dug his fingertips against the threads of her veins.

"Come, my dear. I have a wedding gift of sorts; it's all arranged and ready for your appraisal. Let me show you." He did not wait for concession, dragging her behind him in hurried steps back through the house.

The front door was open wide, and light from the living room hearth spilled out into the stone catacombs. As he pulled her through the paths of orange streaks, she lost an image of what awaited until they crossed the threshold and entered the damp, chilled corridor.

"Christine!"

The breath was knocked out of her, and conviction failed to aghast surprise as she shot an accusatory glare at the sinisterly grinning corpse beside her. "What is this?" she demanded, her voice wavering and telling her shock for her.

"The denouement, of course," he replied. "You better act the scene better than the ones you presented onstage tonight. I expect a seamless execution."

She ignored his two-sided taunts and averted attention to her captive fiancé. Raoul in the catacombs. That was shock enough, but to find him strung up in a noose, teetering on a narrow bench one flinch from strangulation was making the scene spin too quickly before her eyes. She hadn't anticipated having Raoul's fate in her hands as well.

"You have no reason to kill him," she insisted to Erik, afraid for the first time. "Let him go."

Raoul did not balk, even as he met the Opera Ghost's sneer of rage and saw a true demon in those underground recesses. It was an act, he tried to tell himself. The rope about his neck had no real tautness, and he was not a valid inch from death. One tug would have him free, as the plan went, free to play the hero and race to Christine's rescue once the ugly ultimatum was set. It was all a charade to break Christine's fascination with a devil, he insisted over and over again, promising his better sense that it would work. She'd see the evil everyone else did and realize her heart was never involved to begin with, that her supposed love was for the lies and not the murdering fiend with a corpse's face leering at her in the darkness. He repeated it to his doubts every second he had to endure staring at _his_ fiancée in another man's wedding gown.

"Your Vicomte dared to rush heart-first into the dragon's lair," the Opera Ghost mocked. "I can forgive the impetus when your beauty would call any man to leap to his demise, but I cannot forgive those who trespass in my domain. He will have to pay the consequences."

Christine glanced between Erik's provoking glower and Raoul's equally set scowl, trembling as she pondered what the final tipping point would be. One wrong word from her overprotective Vicomte, one preemptory move, and she did not question that Erik would instigate Raoul's death without regret.

"Erik, stop this madness!" she shouted impatiently. "Raoul should not lose his life for me. Let this be between you and I, and release him!"

"But he is as much a main character as we are in this drama," Erik replied with a scoff of disbelief. "You are to marry me when you are betrothed to another man, and I see no alternative to ridding the world of one of your suitors. You cannot have vows to two men, Christine. That is _bigamy_ after all! I am only rectifying the situation for you."

He took a step closer to the Vicomte, and without a thought, Christine grabbed his arm and fought to deter him. "Erik, _please_. Don't."

Mismatched eyes bore into her as he snapped, "What will you do to stop me? You forget that the Vicomte is nothing but a thorn in my side, and killing him would be appropriate justice."

"Go on then!" Raoul yelled back indignantly. "The high and mighty Opera Ghost claims his power, but I have yet to see anything beyond a _coward's_ actions. Dropping chandeliers, attacking under the cover of darkness, abducting an innocent girl and filling her head with your lies. Give me something worth fearing, monsieur, because all I see is a deranged lunatic desperate for attention."

"Raoul!" Christine shouted in warning, her eyes growing wide with terror as Erik gave a low growl in response. She clung tighter to his arm to keep him from acting. "Erik, don't! He's not a threat; he thinks he's protecting me."

"A _coward_," Erik spat, mismatched eyes sparkling with rage. "You dare insult me, monsieur? Are you ignorant to the blood on my hands? I have no hesitation to adding _yours_. I've taken lives far more arresting than a petty Vicomte!"

"You _are_ a coward!" Raoul retorted. "You hide behind notes and mirrors, behind _lies_ and a façade of authority. You are _pathetic_."

"Stop!" Christine yelled to them both and put herself in Erik's path. "Erik, _please_."

"Well, this is a treat indeed," Erik spat. "To have the Vicomte de Chagny's fate in _my_ hands as much as yours, beloved. I want a bride; you are committed to my rival. The answer seems simple and straightforward."

"No-"

"_But_ it wouldn't be very fortuitous to start our married life with a murder, I suppose. Perhaps I should put the Vicomte's well-being in _your_ hands. Marriage is about respecting one another, equal corners, and such nonsense. Let me present it on _my_ terms for your approval." He paused and leaned close, purposely putting his face in the meager orange light escaping the door. "Marry me of your own free will and choice, my _wife_ with every detail the title implies, or watch your Vicomte breathe his last breath. I bear no hesitation to murdering any man in my path to your heart, but if you were my wife legally and binding before man and God, then what would it matter if dearest Raoul lived out his days? You'd be _mine_ to do with as I pleased."

_His_… Christine heard promises in that word, but to have it cast with such ugly intent… A marriage or a murder. And what choice was there? Choice was irrelevant. He already knew what her answer would be.

The events went a certain way in Erik's mind. He'd laid the stones to a brilliant plan and expected the outcome he'd arranged. An ultimatum heaved by the cruel Opera Ghost, the sort of terms only a monster would sow. She was supposed to be appalled and resentful. Dear God, a _monster_ had carried her from the stage after humiliating them both with his heinous face. A _monster_ had embraced her like an animal in the catacombs. A _monster_ had spoken vicious remarks and nearly stripped her in command for a bride.

In his mind, his presented choice brought tears and pleadings, the proverbial virgin sacrifice agreeing to a monster's suit amidst horror and revulsion. It was practically its own epic libretto, and by his evaluation, he'd played his role well enough. Why was _she_ not portraying her own part as accurately? She glanced to the fierce stare of the Vicomte, but remained pensive; it was the Vicomte who heaved the pleading that should have been on _her_ lips.

"Don't do this, Christine! Don't even consider handing over your life to save me! He's a monster! You must see that!"

Yes, a _monster_, Erik longed to shout at her and shake sense into her. Why was she standing so defiant and courageous? Where were _tears_?

With a ferocious growl, he grabbed her shoulders and shouted, "I grow impatient with your games. If you expect your beauty will win you leniency or a twist of my heart will save you from a doomed fate, it is far too late for that."

"I never asked to be saved," she replied quietly, still victim to a resigned acquiescence that was driving him mad.

Glaring and never cushioning a rush of temper, he bitterly ordered, "Cry, Christine! Come now; there must be some tears for your blighted future. I stole your fairytale illusions, and now I will steal your innocence as well. _Cry_! Beg me to reconsider and show compassion instead! Be true to your assigned character. You're _supposed to_ break!"

Erik watched her brow furrow. He was desperate to know her thoughts, but she kept every one clutched tight and gave no hint if he was making a dent in her surprising conviction.

"Christine," he sharply called, trying to burst her musings, and as he fixed his stare with hers and saw a glimmering light in a sea of blues, she deviated from the script in his head and rewrote the libretto completely.

He still had her shoulders in a fitful grasp, his fingertips digging into the satin of the wedding gown, and so suddenly that he had no time to put on his heart's armored shell, she crossed the meager chasm between them and pressed her lips to his.

Erik went stiff and numb, every muscle tensing as if struck in rigor mortis. Dead…and then _alive_. So very alive that his heart beat a maddening pulse against his ribs and an uncommon heat flooded his veins, flushing his chilled flesh and searing him with a burn.

A kiss… He'd been terrified to steal that very thing, and here she was, giving it of her own free will. It was too much to bear. Her mouth was gentle on his, delicate as if she were afraid too much pressure would bring pain, but the voice in his head longed to beg for that very thing. _Harder, deeper, hurt me and leave your mark_. But he was too stunned to even kiss her back, his fingers releasing of their own accord, and hands flexing on empty air as a shudder attacked every limb. He let go, …and to his shock, _she_ held on. Her willowy arms raveled about his waist and entwined, her fists gripping his jacket at the small of his back. _Held_…by the only woman he'd ever loved. _Kissed_ by her soft, tender lips. _Scarred_ forever when his heart beat so hard that it chipped rib-bones.

Inside and out, he felt the reverberations of that simple kiss, and when she slowly drew back and met his terrified stare, he knew she saw the destruction she'd left in her wake, the fractures spreading outward and flaking away bits of an Opera Ghost's power.

In a breathless whisper, she said, "I'll marry you, Erik." And he felt the world suddenly spin beyond his control.

"No," he gasped, trying weakly to shrink out of her embrace. "No, no, no."

Madness spurred to life in the delicacy of a perfect kiss; it was all-consuming as it took hold and insisted that his plan was null and void, wiped from existence. It was too much. He'd resigned himself to losing her and every dream he'd ever had, plotted the details to their most minute point, and _she_ had stolen his power, making him no more than a simpering fool in love, dropping to _her_ whim and mercy. He couldn't allow that. No…he was a monster… What had she done to him?

With a fierce cry, he grabbed her tangled arms and yanked them apart, breaking their grip and forcing her away with a shove that made her stumble. _Finally_, a sway in her stance! He took it as encouragement for more violation and violence.

"Ignorant child," he snapped, desperately fighting emotions that swelled and tried to suffocate him. His body fell to their pull, and his hand touched his lips, hating their misshapen shapes but _adoring_ them in a caress because _hers_ had been there. _Oh God_… They were ugly and unworthy, but now they bore her cells on their surface, transformed so quickly and unexpectedly. A kiss was _too intimate_. Why had she dared?

"Erik, what's wrong?" she demanded with the edge of anxiousness in her voice, and for the first time, he saw a hint of trepidation. So _this_ rattled her: this persona of a man at the brink of insanity. Monster bore no impact, but _madman_ seemed to. He couldn't understand it! He needed to rewrite the plot, to rerun the entire scene with _this_ character in mind if it would earn his desired ending. But it was too late.

"Get out," he commanded. "Take your Vicomte and leave me be."

"Erik, what-"

"Get out!" he tried again, shouting the words and feeling their letters vibrate down the dark corridors.

"Why?" she asked urgently, and at last, he saw _tears_, filling her eyes and trickling from their corners. He'd been ignorant to demand tears; he hated to see her cry…

Erik lifted his delirious eyes to the watching Vicomte. Ah yes, their plot was awry, and he glimpsed the same shock in his rival. But there was also pain. Christine had just changed the rules, and they all would suffer for it.

"Erik!" she snapped, and he darted focus back to her damning tears, abhorring the way they sparkled even in the underground. They should only shine in the sunlight…

"Leave this place," he ordered, cold and sharp. "Forget I ever existed. Your angel is dead; I murdered him with my bloodstained hands. Find a new illusion to hang your dreams upon. They are too heavy for me to bear any longer."

"What are you talking about? I chose you."

"And I don't _want_ you!" he shrieked at her, and she quivered and faltered small steps. "I want a _woman_, and you are a _child_. That kiss proved it. A fairytale ending, Christine? The culmination of magic and transformations? You live an _illusion_! How could a little girl and her sweet, sugarcoated kisses be enough for me? I stupidly cast you in the wrong part. You are a disappointment in the role."

Her tears fell faster, and even though he watched his every word strike and leave a vicious blow, he did not recant. She was finally seeing a monster.

"Erik…"

She whispered his name, her entire frame trembling, and he caught her shoulders again and made her hold his glare as he stated, blunt and inarguable, "That kiss was an abomination. Perhaps your Vicomte humors your innocence, but it is a curse. I only wish I had realized it sooner and saved myself the aggravation of building you lies. I could never be satisfied with a simpering child bride. Go back to your world and play fairytales with your Vicomte. I don't want you."

A sob deflated Christine's lungs, and as Erik released her, her knees could not seem to support her weighty heart. They quaked and made her sway on her feet, but before she could fall, Raoul was there, catching her with his strong arms and keeping her upright.

"Christine," he crooned, tenderly stroking her hair. "Come on before the madman changes his mind!" He fitted her to his side and began to guide her toward the dark passageways.

Tears blurred her eyes, but she glanced back to the underground house and her fallen angel. Through the streaming beams of firelight, she found his silhouette, lingering in the shadows beyond any glow. Mismatched eyes were not upon her and never knew she stared, but she saw his shaking hand press again to his lips, …those misshapen lips she'd kissed. She wore their brand as much as he wore hers, but…he'd called her kiss an abomination.

Her body convulsed in silent sobs; she bit back any sound that fought to loosen from her lungs, terrified to let it filter back. She couldn't let Erik know she cried, but she was doubtless Raoul felt every spasm and suffered the wetness of her tears on his sleeve. He never said a word. 

* * *

This was madness; it had to be. Erik was haunted by one scene, one moment looping in a spiral through his mind. It played and replayed its details until he stopped trusting memory, scared it was adding nuances that had not been present. What had been in Christine's eyes the instant before she'd acted and changed his world? Was it adamancy to accept her fate? A flicker of sadness for her lost fortune? Fear? Pity? …Love? He _needed_ to know; he couldn't reason the _why_ behind her actions without it. She'd _kissed_ him! _Why_? Why degrade herself to the point of touching something so heinous and deplorable? It had always _disgusted_ her!

The agonizing musings racked his brain until he was sick on them. Time lost meaning somewhere beneath their curtain, and he could not say if he spent hours or days as their victim. When the questions finally subsided their possession, yet without answers, then the misery settled over him.

He was alone… By his own doing, he'd surrendered love, happiness, any chance to be something more than a tragedy. Better sense kept its original argument: that he'd done it _for her_, but his heart longed to knock better sense upside its head and beat it to a bloody pulp! He'd had Christine in his arms of her own will and wanting with _love_ nearly at his fingertips, and he'd singlehandedly destroyed it. _He_ had decided he didn't deserve it even when she had freely dangled it within his grasp; he had handed it over to a Vicomte with a perfect face and a title that was not synonymous with _evil_. It suddenly seemed ridiculous! He'd judged his future by his past.

With a frustrated growl, Erik abandoned the underground as the masked Opera Ghost once again. He needed to breathe, and the air below hung old and stagnant about his lungs. How many years had he spent buried below like a corpse waiting to die, and for once, he sought to touch the world and left a travesty in his wake. It was time to go.

A direction solidified in his mind as he paced the empty city streets with only the moon looking on. He'd pack only necessities and flee like a fugitive. Perhaps he'd tour the country, the continent even, put as many miles between him and the Paris opera as he could. The world was huge; he often forgot that when captive below its surface. There were other epicenters for music and innovation, …other people. He'd pinned all his hope on one girl, too innocent, too pure; she deserved fairytales, and he was typically their villain. But…she'd opened his eyes to what it could feel like not to be alone.

Love was out of the question. He'd already given his heart and wasn't going to get it back. Miles and continents in between, he knew his heart would stay beneath the Paris opera trapped in the memory of his one and only kiss. Let it. He didn't need a heart to find solace and companionship. Christine had looked on his face without disgust; it left him a meager hope that there could be others who wouldn't choose disgust first. Could an entire world be full of only judgment and abhorrence? He was determined to find an answer; it was a better alternative to remaining and watching the love of his life love another man.

Erik stalked back to the opera, new future set in his mind and a few motions from starting. His gaze traveled over the familiar building; he knew he'd miss it. To him, it had been _home_. Music's domain. How often melodies would echo into the catacombs, pouring down from the stage's rehearsals. He'd surrounded himself in his greatest passion, and he was about to abandon it.

"Risen from your grave again, Monsieur Ghost? I'd have thought with your recent drama, you'd be keeping out of the limelight."

"Damian," Erik greeted curtly as the Gypsy stepped out of a nearby shadowed alleyway.

"The city's on alert for a man in a mask, and yet you brazenly stalk the streets. Arrogance must come with the title, Monsieur Opera Ghost. It certainly doesn't come with the mystique; you laid all your cards on the table by showing them your face."

"The Opera Ghost is dead, and this time permanently," Erik spat back.

"Why?"

He gave an apathetic shrug and concluded somberly, "Playing pretend has grown passé. It doesn't change the important facets to _pretend_ they don't exist. I'm an evil monster with the face of a demon. Playing a role never took those things away."

"You're melancholy tonight," Damian accused, coming alongside him with never a hesitation. "Is this about the girl? They're saying you abducted the diva soprano off the stage. …Is she dead?"

Erik shot him a biting glare. "What are you implying? That I carried her off to _kill_ her? Is that the story floating through the gossip chain?"

"Not exactly. They make it sound like a deranged love story, but I _know you_, Erik. Love isn't in your capabilities. Sins beget sins, and love is too unpredictable for a man like you. You favor control too much. So what was it then? Lusting after the little tart and decided to do something about it?"

Without a thought, Erik had the Gypsy's throat in his fierce grip, but Damian's sinister grin never even faltered. "How dare you? I am no rapist." No…he'd only _pretended_ such aggression, or so sense protested with one memory of ripping Christine's gown.

Damian chuckled and scoffed, "What did you carry her off for then? An underground tea party?"

Tightening his hold did not make Damian's laughter stop, so Erik flatly declared, "A marriage proposal, if you must know, but contrary to your assumptions, I _do_ love her. I loved her enough to let her go."

"Ah, so that's what this melancholy is! A broken heart!" Damian concluded with a commiserating shake of his head. "So I ask again: is the girl dead?"

"Of course not!"

"Don't take offense. Murder is your forte after all."

_Murder…and why couldn't it have been music…or love?_

"So you loved her, and she broke your heart," Damian summed up with a high-pitched whistle. "Sad story, and all the worse after you gave a few hundred opera goers a glimpse of your face. Your secrets are out, old friend, _but_…you could turn this to your advantage."

Erik shook his head and released Damian from his hold. "No, I'm leaving."

"Leaving?" Damian demanded, rubbing his sore throat; even as he acted nonchalant, Erik saw the mark he'd left in a red imprint. "But you're at the top of your game. They saw your face; they know you're…different. Use that fear and misunderstanding. You could _be_ a genuine ghost, a demon of hell, even the devil himself in their eyes if you wanted."

"And I _don't_ want it. Not a new role, not the same one. None are deserving of anything beyond darkness and pain. It's time to let the Opera Ghost rot in his grave."

"So hasty," Damian retorted. "Is this about the girl? Girls come and go, but legends live forever, and you, Monsieur Opera Ghost, are a _legend_. Forget the girl, and embrace your fame."

"Forget her?" Erik scoffed doubtfully. "Obviously, you've never known love."

"Of course I have. A few times a year at least, and love is not worth more than infamy."

"Our definitions of love vastly contradict one another. Love is not a fleeting fancy. …At least mine isn't. I will carry Christine's image to my deathbed with the same ache in my heart."

"Christine…Daaé? …The little singer engaged to a Vicomte?"

"You've heard her name," Erik bid suspiciously through a shrewd gaze.

"It's all the talk," Damian replied. "Vicomtes do not typically marry opera singers." Chuckling again, he declared, "Engaged to a Vicomte, the fixation of the Opera Ghost… She must be quite a girl."

His comment made Erik narrow his glare. Any other would have recoiled and blanched beneath such a heavy stare, but to Erik's annoyance, Damian seemed unaffected and even a touch amused.

"She is none of your concern." Erik ground out every word with an unspoken threat between their letters. "Are you intending to dally on the city streets like a pauper much longer? It is unbecoming and a nuisance."

With an idle shrug, Damian replied, "Not much longer. …You're leaving, aren't you?"

Erik hesitated to answer, his mind pondering Christine and an unqualified worry for her safety. He didn't trust Damian, even if nothing dangerous had been said. But…well, Christine's safety was no longer his responsibility. She had a fiancé ready to play hero if need be. The realization only served to remind him that it was time to leave this place behind.

"I need to find something better from this world," he insisted with an air of desolation. "And…there is nothing left for me here. I cannot live out my days in regret."

"Well, if this is goodbye, I hope you find what you're looking for, Erik," the Gypsy said, but Erik doubted his sudden understanding. "Maybe we'll cross paths again."

"I don't think so. Goodbye, Damian."

Leaving the Gypsy in the shadows, Erik wandered back toward the catacombs, forming plans for the next sunset. He would abandon Paris by nightfall and travel the distance. Hopefully, the further he went, the more the cord binding him to Christine would stretch and fray. Maybe by the time he found a destination, it would snap for good.

Damian watched Erik's silhouette until it vanished from sight. The almighty Opera Ghost running from his life and the woman who'd shattered his condescending ego. Damian snickered beneath his breath to consider it. Erik had had everything an outcast could want, and he'd squandered it for _love_. Pathetic! Well, no matter. Damian was determined that the spoils would not be wasted. He had an idea, and the opera had a vacancy. His fortune was about to change.


	7. Chapter 7

Sorry this took so long to get posted! Sick kids and no sleep make edits into a vortex of moving words!

Chapter Seven

6 months later

She was there again, wandering the dark catacombs in a dirt-smudged wedding gown. Down she went. Deeper beneath the earth's surface, closer to hell. Her footfalls whispered on the stone floor, deafening in the silence as much as the beat-beat-beat of her frantic heart.

She shouldn't be there; she kept thinking through warnings and self-chastisement, everything that told her she was _wrong_ to be tiptoeing through the dark, wanting it to seep into her veins and claim her. No, no, it wasn't right… But despite every contradictory thought in her brain, her body knew she was _home_ and rushed a sense of calm through her quaking limbs. How long since she'd walked the familiar path? …Too long.

She knew the way, and yet the corridors suddenly seemed to misalign and reshape. They shifted their tunnels with stone grinding its song against stone and left her stranded with no sort of guiding compass. Her shallow breaths drowned out the anticipatory throb of her heart as terror struck and skimmed her skin, leaving goose bumps behind. She was supposed to be going home, but home was suddenly gone. She was lost in the dark, _alone_…

"Erik…" The name fell from her lips in a frantic gasp, but…Erik didn't want her. 

* * *

As the memory broke the surface of dreamscape, Christine darted upright from beneath the covers, gulping necessary breaths into heaving lungs. Another nightmare to add to a list that extended six months long. In her dreams, she went home, and in her dreams, home didn't want her.

Tears threatened, tickling the corners of her eyes, but she fought them back and urgently sought something else to distract her. No, she would not cry; Raoul could always tell when she'd been crying, and she refused to hurt him any longer with her own heartache. He didn't deserve that.

Her gaze wandered the dawn-lit details of her room. An oversized trunk was poised and open in the center of the carpet, half-packed and yet more ready to go than she was. For six months, this place had provided a makeshift solace: the de Chagny country estate, hours from the bustle of Paris, where the only ghosts in existence were the ones that had followed their exodus from the opera and breathed in memory and dreams. Her form of happiness here had been as contrived as angels with golden voices, but thankfully, Raoul had not pushed for more than that. He seemed to see this as a necessary respite to recovery; he couldn't understand that as far as Christine was concerned, there was no recovery. She was tortured day and night by her own mind's betraying musings, obsessing over a night that had torn her in two. And now…well, by the end of the week, they'd be back in Paris, and she was half-afraid her nightmares would swallow her in the realm of reality this time.

Manipulating a deep inhalation in hopes of calming her racing pulse, she climbed out of the lavish canopy bed and readied for the day despite the early hour. Sleep was not apt to return, and she didn't want it to. It would only be over-laden in more agonizing visions, pulled from the deepest recesses of her heart.

Erik… That last night at the opera… A kiss that had destroyed her when it should have destroyed a ghost instead… She was too weak to suppress the images once they appeared on the forefront of thought again, and though she swallowed back the accompanying tears, the pictures haunted and dropped their heavy weight upon her.

It was _humiliating_, whipping her with a pain still so raw and unhealed. She'd sought to be brave, and Erik had mocked her attempt, degrading her with jeers for the kiss she'd given from her soul. The memory brought a heated blush of abashment over every inch of her skin. He'd ridiculed her kiss. …An _abomination_, he'd said.

The word racked her with its violent assault, and shuddering, she fought to focus on the task of dressing. But her mind was an instigator and drew her back into its curtain. It taunted and said Erik was right. She'd thrown herself brazenly at him, and he'd made fun of it, called her a child. Her naïveté had been her curse once, when she'd believed a murderer behind her mirror was an angel of God, but she'd been gripping adulthood after that, determined never to be a gullible child again. He obviously had not believed her transformation for an instant and had ripped it to shreds.

Clumsy fingers stumbled with the clasps of her gown, and she chastised her internal awkwardness. Erik had wanted a _wife_, and she had been just as awkward taking the initiative. She hadn't considered her innocence before she'd kissed him, so certain the emotion behind the act would hide every flaw in her presentation. No, she was no connoisseur of physical intimacies, but she didn't think Erik wanted that. He'd been afraid; she'd felt it… Evidently, he didn't want a fumbling child feigning the skill set of a woman either.

Christine stayed tormented in her head until she was clothed and abandoning her lonely room. The house was quiet as the rising sun peeked into the windows and lit the long corridors with its newborn beams. They stretched along the floor and guided her trek to the large sitting room.

Every detail of this country estate was oversized as if the luxury of the de Chagny's city-set mansion had been inflated and sprawled outward to new heights and extremes. She'd never been in a house with two dozen bedrooms and a ballroom on the main floor. It was staggering to realize that when she became a Vicomtesse, this would be commonplace.

"Couldn't sleep?"

Christine halted her meditation in the doorway, finding Raoul beyond the threshold, sipping a cup of coffee before full-length terrace windows that overlooked the resurrection of that miraculous sun.

Shrugging apathetically, she concluded, "You couldn't either, it seems."

Raoul avoided the deeper implications of sleepless nights as adamantly as she did and bid instead, "I wanted to revel in the view. We don't get to see such sunrises in the city."

Creeping close to the glass, Christine peered at the orange orb gracing the horizon and chasing away the lingering shadows of night. "It _is_ beautiful," she agreed, and glancing at the Vicomte, she found his stare upon her. "What?"

He shook his head as if indifferent, but his words were bottomless. "That's the first time in months I feel like you've been here in the moment with me." Quickly looking away, he sipped his coffee again and pretended to focus on the sun.

She traced the lines of his face, undetected. A few had been carved by traumas she herself had put him through. A year ago, they had not existed, and it bothered her that she had no basis for _when_ they'd appeared. He was right; this felt like the first time she truly looked at him in longer than she could remember. She was sorry for that, but she bit back apologies that only seemed selfish and shifted her eyes to the distance again.

"Why are you awake so early?" Raoul asked, but she refused to meet his stare. "Another nightmare?"

A single nod said enough, and she heard his loud huff as his disappointment.

"Maybe it isn't such a wise choice to return to Paris so soon," he said somberly. "The gossip followed us out of the city. We've no proof it has subsided. I won't put you back before prying eyes and vulgar words."

_Opera Ghost's whore_. No matter how many precautions Raoul had taken, how many stories and excuses he'd laid for her protection, nothing could make up for the revelation of Erik's disfigurement before an audience eager to form their own conclusions. Six months wouldn't blot out history, but she had one definitive reason to put herself back in their line of fire.

"I want to sing," she declared, even if it was with half a heart and turned to weigh the Vicomte's reaction.

But watching her steadily, Raoul only nodded and did not argue. And why? He could not ponder the details until she turned back to the windows, afraid she'd be able to _see_ memories she did not own. Why indeed… Because he'd made a promise.

Six months before, he'd traded a life of peace and propriety for love. It was enough of a transgression to have a Vicomtesse with performing in her past; it was a new form of scandal to have a Victomtesse _still_ performing. He would have taken her away from that world and built so much in its place, but he was bound to a deal with a devil. The Opera Ghost…_Erik_ had seemed to know the day would come when Christine would plead to return to the opera. Music. Raoul could not understand the lure or how it could climb within a person's being and etch its possession onto bones; to him, the idea of giving it up seemed inconsequential and mundane. It wasn't the same as losing a life or a beloved, but Erik had insisted Christine would feel the loss like a hole in her soul, and when the time came, Raoul had promised not to refuse. To let her sing… It hadn't seemed like a sacrifice when he'd conceded to such terms, but now… It felt like he was giving Christine permission to remember.

His eyes trailed her beautiful profile, and he hated every pensive furrow in her brow when he was unaware what would fill their gaps. He'd tried; Lord help him, he'd spent six months desperate to earn her happiness and the love he was terrified belonged to another. But she'd seemed to adopt her own mask to hide her scars behind, and she would not remove it when in his presence. He knew she cried and mourned, but he wasn't allowed to offer comfort. No, she kept him at arm's length.

"Christine," he called, solemn as she averted blue eyes to his constant stare. "I know it isn't easy, but…well, it shouldn't be _this_ difficult either. Six months ago, I thought coming here would help us heal, but we are no better off than we were that last night at the opera."

"What would you have me do, Raoul?" she demanded with a tinge of urgency that he grabbed onto with both hands. He was tired of avoiding issues and giving her room to breathe. It was time to broach headfirst.

"Talk to me. Tell me what you think about when you stare blankly into the shadows. Tell me about your nightmares and why you come to breakfast every day with fear in your eyes and tears you don't want me to know you cry. We fled the opera house six months ago, but it's as if we never truly left. _You_ are still there, and you won't let me be there with you." Rising, he approached, lifting defenseless hands for fear she'd shrink away. "Christine, …is this trauma for what you endured, …or regret for what you didn't? …Are you happy here with me?"

"Of course," she replied, but her smile looked hollow, the porcelain doll yet again. How he longed to shatter its pretense in his hands! "Why would you ask such a thing?"

"Because I feel like half of you is still in the catacombs of the opera…with _him_." He tried not to make it an accusation, but the guilt that erupted in her stare said she took it with blame. "Christine… What happened that last night at the opera should have put an end to everything but our future happiness, but you avoid my every effort to push us past the traumas we suffered to be together. You're dwelling on something that shouldn't matter any longer, and I don't understand _why_."

Christine did not lower her eyes as impulse longed to; she forced herself to stay fixed on Raoul's intent blue stare and face his allegations. "Because…it isn't over…not in my head at least. That night…it was a blur for so long, but now it comes back in pieces. I _need_ to put it to rest, but…I can't until I can reason it out."

"Why?" he demanded anxiously. "Why can't you let it go and let us move on?"

"I don't know," she answered honestly. "It _haunts_ me every second."

She knew admitting such a thing would hurt Raoul, but though he shifted on his feet, uncomfortable and evasive, he answered with a modicum of calmness. "In truth, I don't see much beyond a madman throwing a temper tantrum. There is no 'reason' behind manic hysteria, and searching for one is a pointless waste of time."

It hadn't seemed like manic hysteria to Christine, but she bit back any argument. She had no intention of discussing Erik with Raoul. The Vicomte already had his preconceived notions in mind; he'd only ever see the madman and monster.

"It isn't just…_his_ actions that I muse upon," she reluctantly revealed, knowing she owed Raoul at least some of her truths. "It's _yours_."

"Mine?" he inquired with a nonchalant shrug. "I came to rescue you; what is there to muse upon in that?"

She hesitated, but he waited patiently and did not insist on answers until she willingly spoke the questions. "How did you get down to the catacombs that night? It isn't easy to navigate the tunnels, and Erik has traps everywhere. One wrong step, and you could have been dead."

Raoul kept a straight face, never even a flicker of guilt. Navigating the paths was simple when one had a map to the last detail drawn out by the enemy himself. "Sheer luck!" he answered enthusiastically. "One of the stagehands gave me a description of the passageways and their layout, but I was just fortunate to make good choices. Perhaps you can call that 'divine intervention'. I was meant to get there in time and save you."

Her expression was the same veneer he was accustomed to and did not show whether she believed him or not.

"But if you'll recall," he quickly continued, "I _was_ ensnared in a trap. I may have made it through the passages unscathed, but the devil had me in a noose before I ever made it to the house."

"And…how did he know you were there, I wonder. Even if he guessed you'd try to follow us, he had to conclude you'd be deterred and never make it so far."

"Perhaps he had an alarm," Raoul offered as if a logical idea. "A man paranoid enough to lay traps in the dark probably would consider warning signs as well. Just because I didn't trigger a trap doesn't mean I gave nothing away that I was searching the underground for you. …What does any of that matter? I ended up in the bastard's noose; I don't wonder how I got there. I knew the dangers when I set foot in the shadows, but I was only concerned with getting to _you_."

She shook off his attempt at erupting emotion and stated, "I told you the details haunt me. Call it a flaw of my curiosity. But there are too many things that don't make sense."

Raoul huffed in aggravation but inquired, "What else then? Go on. Interrogate me for playing the hero. I did nothing wrong." …_Except love her enough to want to keep her_.

Firm and almost cold, she demanded, "How did you get free of the noose?"

"What?"

She remained resolute. "You were strung up, one motion from death, and then suddenly, you were there at my side, helping me flee. How did you do it?"

An unexpected inquiry, and Raoul paused an awkward moment, hunting for a feasible answer for her infernal curiosity. "…Your Opera Ghost was more talk and arrogance than finesse. When he was…distracted, I was able to unknot the rope. He'd been hasty in my capture and did a lackluster job restraining me. Again, luck was on my side. I like to think Fate convinced _you_ to act as you did. It gave me the perfect chance to free myself. If he hadn't have let us go, I intended to attack the monster and fight for your freedom."

It was half-true, but in the original plan when he freed himself and attacked the Opera Ghost, Christine was _grateful_ for being spared a marriage to a monster. Raoul was supposed to rescue her, and she was supposed to _care_, and an Opera Ghost was supposed to fade into the backdrop and leave them be. So far none of those points had come to fruition.

"Christine, this is silly," Raoul deemed when her brow never un-furrowed its doubts. "It's _over_. He let us go, and now he's gone. We should be rejoicing; we _won_."

Her expression never changed as she asked, "How do you know he's gone?"

The other half of a promise, and it was the only reason Raoul was keeping his end of it. Erik was gone for good, and Christine could return to singing at the opera. Raoul didn't question it when they'd been left alone for six months with the only ghosts existing in Christine's mind.

"Let me be the one to worry over ghosts this time," Raoul replied, gently caressing her cheek. "You concern yourself with singing, and if the ghost does dare return, I will play my part once again and rescue you. That's how fairytales are meant to go after all. I save the fair princess from the evil villain, and we live happily ever after. Isn't that how the stories end, Christine? There is always happiness and magical kisses."

A kiss. He felt _he_ was haunted by that part, but refusing memory's pull, he bent to her lips. Before he ever grazed their surface, she ducked her head and pulled away. …It had been that way for months.

"Christine," he huffed in disappointment. "A kiss isn't supposed to be something you're afraid of. You act like it will hurt."

It would; it did. Kisses could leave scars; she wore hers on the inside where no one could see them.

"I…have to go and finish packing," Christine stammered nervously and backed toward the door. She tried to ignore his discontentment, but she felt it follow her out into the corridors, nipping at her heels with every step.

He couldn't possibly understand the embarrassment flaming her cheeks in vibrant reds. A kiss in the catacombs disturbed her more than any other second of that dreadful night.

An _abomination_… The abhorrent word had clawed its way into her definition of kiss. _Childish, ignorant, pathetic_, Erik might as well have tossed out those criticisms with it. She'd given a kiss, but he'd taken it as the kiss of a child, not the kiss of a convicted and brave woman. …He didn't want a child; he'd made that clear.

Carefully making certain no one spied her actions, Christine slipped out the back door and into the dawn air. It was refreshing when every other breath felt heavy and too full of thought to bear. Delicate breezes tickled her skin, wafting the perfumed scent of morning glories that tilted their faces toward the sun's first beams. She focused on the flowers lining the path from the back of the house to a small garden. She wanted to see colors and _life_ at its most beautiful. No more musings in the dark… That was an optimistic wish. Within her next breath, those accursed memories returned and engulfed.

She'd kissed a monster… She'd done it because she _wanted_ to, because his heaved ultimatum had been devoid of anything akin to _love_, and she'd hated him for it. She'd wanted love, so she'd presented love. …And he'd humiliated her with it. Her love wasn't enough, her kiss judged for its inadequacy. It hadn't _felt_ that way, not awkward or clumsy; it had _felt_ right…at least to her. She'd tortured herself for months looking back on it from Erik's perspective and validating his claims. Of course, she wasn't experienced, timid when physical intimacy was involved; he must have been so disappointed… She'd been so certain _love_ would make up for innocence's deficiencies; that now seemed a naïve consideration.

Crouching near a bed of violets, she reached out to caress their velvet petals, desperate to ignore the ache within her. She'd offered her heart and had it bruised in return. He didn't want her… She wasn't sure she fully believed that, but when he'd said she wasn't enough… That part held credence. She'd offered the heart of the same shy girl who'd once run from his. Perhaps if she'd offered the passionate, unafraid heart of a woman, everything would have been different. But…it had taken his rejection and loss to learn what a grown woman's heartbeat felt like. Now…well, it was too late now, wasn't it? …Erik didn't want her.

Tears crowded her gaze again and blurred the colors of flowers into a smeared rainbow. She had spent months grieving and grieved still, but she had one convicted thought: she'd return to the opera, the one place she'd ever known peace, and even if the Opera Ghost didn't want her, she'd find something to fill his place. …Music. It was her answer. Melodies would seal the gap in her heart and make her whole again, and she'd pour the passion she was coming to own onto the stage where the world could be make believe and never hurt her again.


	8. Chapter 8

Sorry it's taking me so long to post this week! But as compensation, I promise you chapter nine by the end of the weekend! :)

Chapter Eight

It was dreary and dismal when they arrived in Paris. Christine could only think it matched the somber mood hanging in the carriage their entire journey. It seemed though he'd put on a good show, Raoul wasn't happy with their return to the city scene. He'd barely said a word to her, but she was grateful. Conversation seemed an exhausting pretense, and she preferred staring distractedly out the carriage windows and watching open landscapes become populous streets and glorious buildings stretching to the cloudy sky. The closer they got, the more her heart sped until it was as thunderous as the resonating horses' hooves. She didn't want to _feel_ so deeply, but her heart had its own agenda.

Christine would have preferred to go straightway to the opera house, but that was never a presented option. She was forced to the Vicomte's mansion and a supper with a small group of his city friends, ones who acted polite on the outside but were spinning webs of evil slander beneath their smiles. She knew her every movement was being judged and examined, analyzed as if even the way she held her spoon was proof of her inferior roots.

After dessert, Raoul and the other gentlemen played cards in the drawing room while the ladies took tea in the parlor. It wasn't long before the vipers started to show their fangs, and Christine shifted awkwardly as all eyes locked on her.

"It must have been nice to escape the city for awhile," one of the ladies instigated. "But _six months_ away un-chaperoned! My! I hope your impending wedding will be soon. It _must be_ if you want to save face."

The lady sitting beside Christine dared to touch her hand to gain her attention. "We're actually surprised Raoul is still fixed on a marriage. I mean…well, after the drama at the opera…" She trailed off, and the widened eyes all around said they wanted answers but were unsure how to broach the questions.

_Opera Ghost's whore_… They never had to speak the insult; it was in the gaps between their chattering mouths. Christine felt her cheeks flame, but she denied an impulsive need to lower her head. What did she have to be ashamed of in this room? They judged her for being an opera singer and the fixation of a man with an ugly face. That was petty compared to what she judged _herself_ for. At least being deemed the Opera Ghost's whore implied she was a _woman_ and not the child Erik had criticized and mocked.

"She's _pretty_," one of the other ladies replied, using the word as spiteful as another insult. "That's why the Vicomte won't listen to _sense_. Most men are intelligent enough to put their reputation above their wanting, but…" She gave Christine a smile that was fake in its construction. "It seems you've beguiled him, dear Christine."

"What is your secret?" the one beside her demanded. "You've _ruined_ Raoul's good name in most levels of society, and he still dotes on you like a loyal puppy dog!"

Christine had no intention of answering, and another lady broke the awkward impatience permeating and bid, "And there's a rumor you're going to sing again! Please tell us it isn't true."

"It _is_ true," Christine spoke up, desperate not to let them see that she was shaking beneath their scrutiny.

"And Raoul is allowing it?"

"Of course," she replied. "He wants me to be happy."

"Happy?" the lady beside her scoffed. "What about respected? He's going to be a laughingstock when people learn his fiancée is the one they're watching on the stage! An opera singer for a Vicomtesse! It's an offense to the title and utterly sickening!"

"But why?" Christine collected courage to ask as they all regarded her aghast. "It's just singing."

"_Just_ singing? You let other men _touch_ you and _kiss_ you!"

"Onstage," Christine corrected. "When I am playing a character."

"It's lewd!" one of the ladies commented. "Watching it from a gold-plaited box is one thing, but to be the one doing it! While your soon-to-be husband looks on from his seat! My goodness! Christine, you _must_ see the scandal in that!"

"It's _acting_," she protested with a growing flicker of annoyance.

"But people must question where the line is drawn. That's why performers are known for their loose morals. Well…look at that Opera Ghost drama!"

_Opera Ghost's whore._

"If you were intelligent and considered Raoul at all in your selfishness, you'd leave the opera behind you," the lady next to her said and feigned a concern that was too paltry and inane to be real. "It could exist as a blemish in your past that could potentially fade if you weave a brighter and _proper_ future."

Christine chose silence as her reply and was relieved when conversation spun forward to gossip about other ladies, not opera singers. But their cruelty did not go without a residual mark, and as she pretended to listen, her mind gnawed at her with its musings.

It wasn't fair to Raoul: not an opera-singing fiancée, not a relationship full of walls and distance, not a life where the woman he loved couldn't stop thinking about someone else. She _knew_ it was wrong.

Only much later when their guests finally departed could she finally speak to him and pose a heavy heart.

"Did you have an enjoyable time with the ladies?" Raoul inquired with an encouraging smile.

She gave a dull nod for his sake, and a brief hesitation renewed her conviction as she solemnly asked, "Raoul, would you prefer it if I didn't return to the opera?"

_Yes_. Raoul longed to say it, shout it, whatever it took to make it come true, but he surveyed her through critical eyes and instead demanded, "Is that what _you_ want, Christine?" He shook his head. "What did they say to you?"

"Nothing that I haven't already known. My ambition to perform is a stain on your reputation. An opera singer cannot be a Vicomtesse."

"Why not? That is only a general consensus, not a rule by law or God. Let them say what they will; we're strong enough to deflect every bitter syllable."

She was somber still and insisted back, "I don't care about their words, but _you_ don't deserve to be slandered because of your choices. You've done so much. You risked your very life to save me once, and now you offer your good name as well. I'm not worthy of such sacrifices."

Guilt erupted beneath his calm façade, and the weight of his deception to win her heart bore upon his shoulders. Even if it had gone to plan, it was still laden in lies.

"Sacrifice?" he repeated with feigned ease. "And what is the greater sacrifice? A title, basically a _word_ that gives me a superiority I don't need…or offering oneself to save a life? You almost sacrificed your future once and married a monster for me; _I_ would never ask you to sacrifice what makes you happy and the future I fought to give you. If you want to sing, then that is what I want as well."

He spoke it convincingly with never a hint of reluctance and commended his performance when he was no actor of the stage. It was almost perfect, but she offered the point he did not want uttered, "What if…_he_ is still at the opera?"

"He's not," Raoul assured, and it was not because of a flimsy promise that he could speak with confidence. A note exchanged with the managers after the chaos had died down confirmed it. The ghost was gone. "You don't need to have any worry in your pretty head, save learning your music and shining like a star."

He pressed a tender kiss to her forehead and tried to ignore her quickly lowered eyes and suddenly stiff posture. It wasn't the time to pose that battle. He'd let her sing and find her happiness, and then…then maybe she'd _be Christine_ again. He was willing to be patient and wait for her. What other choice did he have? 

* * *

Christine's knees shook to walk through the opera's doors as violently as they had on her very first entrance so long ago. She'd been naïve then, so gullible to life and love, so sure singing alone would make her happy and fill the void in her soul. But no… An angel had done that and then had pulled naïveté out from beneath her and left a void all over again, only deeper and more cavernous this time.

It was easy to be reinstated in the cast. Raoul had offered to accompany her, but she'd known it wouldn't take more than a request to the managers. They were a greedy pair, and the prospect of having a future Vicomtesse center stage overrode the title of Opera Ghost's whore and made any drama from six months before nothing more than an audience draw. She let them count their fortuitous luck in front of her with nothing but a polite smile until they whisked her off to rehearsals and formally announced her return. Of course, they had to put their returned treasure in the spotlight, heaving the newly-cast prima donna from her throne. It earned a few spiteful glares around, but Christine considered she'd never asked for the lead role. That was the managers' choice. Erik would have said to take opportunities when presented and _never_ protest or question; chances often only came once.

The day was a rush before her eyes as she worked to learn her role in a desperate catch-up with the others. She was pulled from center stage to backstage for costume fittings to center stage again for more blocking and music rehearsal until she was so overwhelmed that she was moving in a daze. She dreaded having to prove she remembered it all the next day!

It wasn't until the cast was released that evening that she was allowed any thought that wasn't about the show. Almost immediately, the ballerinas encircled her, full of hugs and squeals in pitches that could compete with the highest soprano's notes. A dozen chirping voices jabbered at once, questions and compliments, too many to decipher, and the first genuine smile Christine _felt_ in months curved her lips to be accepted and so obviously missed.

Most words got lost amid the excitement until many of the girls rushed off to change, and only Meg, Cecile, and Jammes remained.

"I'm not surprised the managers tossed you right back up the ladder to the prima donna spot," Cecile remarked snidely. "No one can mention your name around here without a sigh of awe attached! You were their favorite."

Jammes shook her head with a giggle. "I think it's because _Vicomtesse_ is also 'attached'. How many other companies can boast a singing aristocrat in their midst? The managers see the profit in every letter of your name, Christine."

"Oh, hush!" Meg scolded. "What does it matter? Christine is back, and we missed her excruciatingly!" She looped her arm with Christine's and gave a bright grin. "Does Raoul mind that you've returned?"

"He says he doesn't, but I'm not sure I completely believe him. The gossip is going to be deafening once the show opens, and his friends see his future bride center stage. But…" Her gaze wandered idly to the shadows in the wings, the path Erik had taken her that last night. "They won't be able to judge more than _assumed_ loose morals, and the rest of it… The Opera Ghost will be forgotten."

The ballerinas exchanged wide-eyed looks, and Christine's heart stilled mid-beat in her chest as she demanded, "What is it? The Opera Ghost…is gone, isn't he?"

"He _was_," Jammes stated after a moment when only uncertain looks circulated.

"For awhile," Meg added. "No more notes or accidents. We truly believed he had left for good, but then…"

"He's back," Cecile somberly reported as all the girls gauged Christine's expression carefully.

The air felt knocked from her lungs, and a glance into the wings became an urgent stare. She searched for his silhouette, doubtless if he lingered and knew she'd returned, he wouldn't be far. But not a single shape shifted or elongated its color, and she never felt the tingle and flush that came when victim to his spying presence. It was a sting of rejection to imagine being a part of the opera and not his focal point.

"Back?" she finally found the strength to probe. "Are you sure?"

Meg gave a solemn nod. "The management is keeping a tight lip about it, but…we've seen him."

"Or rather _he's_ seen _us_," Jammes corrected with a grimace. "We caught a shadow watching us dress backstage."

"It could have been one of the stagehands," Christine justified immediately. The very idea of Erik ogling any of the ballerinas was ludicrous! It fueled disbelief…and a rush of jealousy.

"No," Cecile desolately concluded. "He grabbed me in the corridor, tried to press against me." Tears sparkled in the corners of her eyes, her voice wavering over the words as she mimicked Christine's act of searching shadows. "I kicked him in the shin to get free."

Christine didn't want to believe a single word, but…Erik had pressed against _her_ in the shadows that final night. It was a memory she could barely consider without a rush of sensation through her veins. When she'd been his only one, it had been a gift; she knew he'd never touched anyone before. Now…

"Why are you so certain it was him?" she demanded with a tremble she could not stop.

"Because he tried to kiss me, and I felt the mask," Cecile replied.

Meg scooted closer to Cecile and patted her shoulder as she told Christine, "It seems since you didn't want him, he's moved on to any girl in his path! And…it's not just lust hanging about. There have been a few…_suspicious_ disappearances among the stagehands. He's killing again."

"Why?" Christine gasped, another anxious glance darted about. "Is he seeking to return to running the opera production?"

"No," Jammes replied in a whisper like a secret. "He's seeking to get his salary reinstated _with_ a bonus. Is it now any wonder why a future Vicomtesse is our new star? The managers _need_ the revenue to pay a murdering madman. They want your name more than your talent."

The Opera Ghost running rampant about the opera house, assaulting, kidnapping, murdering in the name of greed… Perhaps Erik _had_ chosen insanity after that last night; he'd obviously released any leash a conscience granted. He'd played immoral games in the name of music before, …in the name of _love_. This time she could not reason his impetus. It was just…_evil_. How many times had he called himself a monster and tried to get her to see it, too? Maybe it was time she finally opened her eyes.

"Oh, Christine, I'm sorry if we've frightened you," Meg gushed now that all smiles had become frowns. "We're taking precautions, sticking together and never wandering off alone. We're safe… You're not going to change your mind and leave again, are you?"

Leave and then what? Give up singing for the stuffy life of a Vicomtesse, full of fake smiles and biting insults every time she turned her back? She could imagine her spirit dying out quickly in that existence.

She had one doubtless truth that made her decision for her. "He won't hurt me."

_Naïve_, sense insisted. Didn't she know better after the lies and trauma she'd endured at his hands? But her heart was convicted in its resolution. _He would not hurt her_.

"But," she continued, "I can't tell Raoul. If he knew, the choice would be out of my hands. He'd take me away and claim he's saving me."

"You were the Opera Ghost's obsession," Cecile remarked, another look thrown to the shadows.

Christine slowly shook her head. "He doesn't want me." It was the nearest she'd come to a revelation, and it was said as much for her heart as her fear. A reminder. The Opera Ghost might pose his threat to everyone else, but she would go untouched.

She had proof before she left the opera house that evening. An entire day beneath his roof, singing onstage with the voice he'd once insisted he adored, and never once did she feel his eyes upon her. _He didn't want her_.


	9. Chapter 9

As promised! :)

Chapter Nine

A week went by without consequence, then two, and Christine was starting to wonder if perhaps the ballerinas' assessment of ghosts in the dark were exaggerated. They were known to leap to the most fright-inducing explanations about things, and the Opera Ghost legend was half their doing, fabricated and circulated about the corridors with frantic hysteria. They fed the fire and genuinely believed their own words so much that others followed suit.

Christine was eager to put their assumptions out of her mind and _sing_, but she'd already been exposed and infected with their insanity. At every chance, she sought to call out a nonexistent spirit, and she was hurt to never feel his eyes upon her. Music had been the greatest passion of his life, treated higher than God, and now she could pose her best performance or her worst and neither brought a reaction. She had no proof Erik was still about the opera, and yet whether or not he was gone, he was _still_ affecting everything in her life and leaving more scars in his wake.

Raoul came to the opera house a few times in that first week to check up on her. While he sat in the audience, she put on her best façade, desperate to show him a happiness that was only half-real, and it worked. He seemed to conclude singing was indeed the best medicine for her distant soul. In his eyes, she was on the verge of being fixed, every hole within her repairing and soldering anew. She was so diligent in her presentation that he never saw the opposite was actually true, and she was falling to the same Opera Ghost fever all over again.

Thankfully, no one uttered any truth to the observing Vicomte. After that first week, he seemed to trust the situation enough to quit appearing at her rehearsals. _He_ was doubtless the ghost was gone; why could she not share his conviction? She _should_ without any evidence for proof, but her mind was her enemy and kept her wondering.

After two weeks of mediocre calm, panic permeated the air backstage and struck Christine, cold and harsh, as she arrived at the opera house one morning. Something had happened. She didn't know what, but the anxiety was palpable among her cast mates as suspicious glares were tossed in her direction at her every step. It wasn't until the noonday break that she was allowed to learn why.

Capturing Meg by the arm, she drew her away from the other watching ballerinas, noting the wariness in wide eyes all around. Careful to keep her voice low, she demanded, "What is it? What's happened?"

"The Opera Ghost and his antics, of course," Meg replied matter-of-factly. "Another stagehand disappeared last night. He was among his fellow comrades one moment, and the next he was gone, vanished somewhere in the first cellar without even a scream. It's terrifying, Christine."

"Terrifying? And yet no one speaks a word about it! I've endured every person in cast and crew staring at me as if _I_ was the criminal in this nonsense, and I had no idea why. I am _not_ involved."

"You were once," Meg reminded. "How many lives did the ghost manipulate and destroy for _your_ success? Forgive them if now that you're back, they draw their own assumptions."

The hint of accusation in Meg's voice drew lines along Christine's brow as she asked nervously, "And you, Meg? Do _you_ think this has something to do with me?"

Her narrow shoulders shrugged, though her expression said something different and far more concrete. "He _loved_ you in his twisted way. He _killed_ to keep you in the spotlight. …It's hard to forget such things."

"He doesn't want me," she asserted, yet never shared the details.

"Even if he doesn't, now that you're back, you had to think there might be repercussions and ripples. Everyone is always going to connect your name with _his_. After all that happened… No one wants more dropped chandeliers and murder because of a ghost's broken heart."

Christine longed to argue that she wasn't sure the Opera Ghost _had_ a heart anymore. Disappearances had occurred in her absence for profit and gain, not music or love.

Suspicious looks continued the rest of an unendurable day. She had an urge to throw her own fervent fit. Hers might not be dramatic enough to have chandeliers falling from the sky, but she was doubtless a good high note could compete in ferocity and power. Finally, she could take no more; if they were going to align her with malevolent ghosts again, she was at least going to learn if it was warranted. …It was time to collect bravery and pay the Opera Ghost a visit.

Making the decision was one thing; following through on it was something entirely different. Her mind flashed images of that last night, of Erik's disfigured face laden in a desperation that had frightened her, of his mismatched eyes wild with fury and desire. He'd pinned everything on her, his very right to exist, and then so abruptly that she hadn't been able to comprehend it, he'd flipped it about. _An abomination_…

Memory almost swallowed bravery, but as she told herself, she had nothing to fear. He wouldn't hurt her; he didn't want her. What was the real risk in a trip to the underground? The only damage would be more wounds to a bleak heart, but they were hers to bear. If she could learn his impetus behind his rash behavior, perhaps she could find the key to stop it, to remind him that there were more important things…_music_ to fight on for. Perhaps she was being naïve to think he'd even listen to a word past her lips.

As soon as she was released from rehearsal, she hurried to her dressing room amidst a chorus of unspoken defamations. _Opera Ghost's whore_. The libel was as loud here as in the parlors of the elite. It chased her footfalls, heaved through biting stares until she was behind her dressing room door like it was an impenetrable shield. Within these walls, too many pleasant memories existed to contradict the bad ones. Here, a ghost had transcended into an angel, and she'd been only a girl in love, as naively hopeful as every other innocent heart. Part of her wished so urgently to fall back in time to those days and rewrite them with a new ending, …and the other part was doubtless only tragedy would follow.

Christine knew the secret doorway through her mirror and into the darkness. Erik had taught her in those first day when she'd still been terrified of her deceitful teacher, mourning an angel with whole heart and soul. He'd insisted she learn; she'd never thought she'd need the knowledge.

The catacombs were a maze, pathways veering in so many directions that if one did not know their way, they'd be lost and likely killed by Erik's constructed traps. Protection, he'd once said to justify death on his doorstep; she'd silently dubbed him paranoid. Her journey included a lantern; she was not skilled enough to move in shadows blindly, and though her insides tugged in consuming reminiscence of an embrace somewhere along the path, her sight had been stolen that night and gave her no definitive and sacred spot to pause and revere. He'd clutched her so irrevocably in that second, and then a handful of minutes later, he'd torn her from his heart and severed all emotion at its starting point.

Oh God, what was she doing down here? What was she going to say when in his presence again? But _he didn't want her_, sense reminded. He hadn't come for her, not in six months, not in the days she'd been singing melodies floors above his head. He hadn't appeared. Sense argued she should treat this attempt now as hunting out a ghost and putting him to rest before he caused too much damage.

Her scurried steps echoed against stone as the dampness settled around her lungs and squeezed every breath she took. It was too quiet, and her sounds shattered any ominous aura of grave-like peace. She felt as if she were crossing over from life to death, but she never hesitated as the path opened and the hidden façade of Erik's home came into view. A light glinted out from within to proclaim his presence, and she shivered before she gathered courage and approached the door.

Timid and feeling the heated blush burning her skin, she turned the knob and peeked inside.

His silhouette was near the hearth, shrouded in black as if he'd only just returned, and she shivered to consider being with him again. Months apart, and still he could make her quake with no effort at all.

"Erik?" she called with a waver she could not control. She was unable to keep a tumult of emotion from her gaze as she crept inside in tentative tiptoes. "Had you no intention of seeing me? I know we parted on bad terms, but you always said the music meant more than everything, even us. And now I sing with the voice _you_ molded, and you pretend you don't hear. Where is your passion?"

She saw her question rattle him, his posture stiffening before he slowly turned his masked face in her direction.

A gasp caught in her throat before she stated plainly, "You're not Erik."

Lips curling in a wry smile, her companion lifted his hands to the mask and pulled it, unneeded, away. The fortune-telling Gypsy stared back at her through sinister, dark eyes, and she shuddered as she shrank meager steps backwards.

"Mademoiselle Daaé, how delightful to have a visitor down here in this tomb! I truly cannot fathom how Erik endured the solitude so long! It's absolutely unbearable after awhile." His grin only grew. "I see you remember my face, but I doubt you recall my name. Random street performers can't account for much to a future Vicomtesse."

Christine racked her memory and found the night he'd accosted her and the ballerinas outside the opera. "…Damian," she said matter-of-factly, desperate not to show her true unease as her mind put the puzzle together.

_The Gypsy man masquerading as the Opera Ghost_… Amidst her anxiousness was a welling of relief. Then _her _Erik had not been the one to grab Cecile or ogle other girls. Why was that offense the one to bother her so much among a list of more damning transgressions?

Keeping guard raised and on alert as she interpreted the rest of the Gypsy's words, she suddenly demanded, "You know Erik?"

"We're old acquaintances," he confirmed, idly twisting the mask between his hands. To Christine, the mask meant _Erik_, and simply looking upon it created a dull ache in her chest.

"Where is he?" she asked, urgent to know.

"Gone. Left months back. Said he was looking for something better." He shrugged as if the answer were ridiculous. "When I saw him, he was quite…lovelorn, let's say. It seems you really left a mark!"

Her mind spiraled over this new information. _Lovelorn_… "He…he told me to leave and sent me off with the Vicomte."

A chuckle rumbled the Gypsy's chest and had her backing another step toward the door. "Well, from what I saw, that wasn't his first choice how he wanted things to end! But men like Erik and I, we make due with the cards we're given. He left, and I found a new deck altogether and wrote a new fortune for myself on them."

Her heart longed to dwell a little longer and demand more answers, but she suddenly recalled the situation she'd put herself in. Alone far from any aid with a stranger who'd already proven himself a threat, and she had no means to defend herself. Shaking and trying to hide it, she asked, "And Erik let you become the new Opera Ghost?"

The smile broadened. "Maybe not 'let' me, per se, but he left the role vacant and unused. I only sought to create a full cast again. The opera needed a ghost, and I needed a new direction. Street corners were growing stale." His gaze narrowed on her. "I realize your impulse is to run upstairs and tattle like a good, little girl. Tell the management exactly who they're dealing with this time. Preserve Erik's version of ghost when mine is a bit unorthodox."

"You've been scaring the ballerinas," she justified, curling limbs toward her chest when even his constant stare felt violating.

But he chuckled again. "It's all in fun! I assure you. Erik really didn't use this role to its full advantage. There's so much authority and power in every move I choose to make. If I feel like teasing a pretty girl, I have no restriction against doing it. It's…liberating."

Christine shook her head in a disgust that made her stand strong. "Erik didn't see it that way. He _never_ considered it as a game of fun! He wore a mask and confined himself in solitude because the world treated him like a monster. You depreciate something you can't understand."

His laughter continued as he retorted, "So says the girl who broke his disfigured heart! You are quite a hypocrite if you mean to denounce me for my spoils. You forget Erik _murdered_ to get what he wanted and just because he had a legitimate reason to wear a mask, it doesn't exonerate him from his sins. We are two of a kind, and you want to chastise _me_ and put _him_ on a pedestal! Ludicrous!"

Christine backed another step toward the door. She might have known how to deal with Erik's moods and temper, but this was a stranger with blood on his hands and no heartstrings to give him hesitation. If he chose to hurt her, she wasn't sure she had words or strength to stop him.

"I…I'm sorry," she stammered even if she didn't mean it. "I only came down here because I thought-"

"You thought to find pathetic Erik and twist him between your fingers again," he finished with a smirk. "You'd exploit your feminine wiles and manipulate the Opera Ghost, but how far do you play that game, my lovely? Do you simply tease and tempt, tilt your pretty head with a smile you wouldn't normally offer a disfigured freak? Or is there any succulence to your role? …Are you as innocent as you portray yourself?"

His forwardness made her blush deepen as she glared and replied with a frantic shiver, "How dare you be so crude, monsieur?"

"Will you tell me then that all the chaos and drama Erik caused was for no more than your virginal graces?" He scoffed his disbelief, but concluded, "Then again, I suppose pretty girls don't usually touch freaks of nature, …not _willingly_ anyway."

Christine detested his every lewd assumption, but she kept silent, analyzing his motions with a critical eye.

"You look like a wild fawn one word away from bolting," he taunted, sensing her anxiety. "Calm yourself, my lovely. I've no intention of harming my diamond nightingale. You are far too valuable to send running off in terror. I need you."

Her surmised suspicions did not dwindle as she demanded, "Why?"

"To sing, of course. I may have no taste for the hoity-toity stuffiness of opera, but I have a good head for business and I realize that with _you_ onstage, they'll be fighting for seats. Vicomtesse in the making, former Opera Ghost's obsession, they'll come for more than your voice and beauty. The reputation always outweighs the talent. I thought you'd learned that by now, but…Erik wouldn't have taught you that, I suppose. He had no business savvy. You are worth far more now than you were at your debut and not because your voice is more brilliant. …Do you know what they call you?"

She wasn't accustomed to displaying abhorrence so openly, but she narrowed her stare in spite as she softly replied, "The Opera Ghost's whore."

Damian nodded enthusiastically and repeated with a snarl, "The Opera Ghost's pretty, little whore, dallying with a disfigured freak while engaged to a Vicomte. It's better than fiction! They'll be lining the streets just to get a glimpse of you! Now do you understand why I cannot afford to alienate my star? No games, no tricks, no teasing in the shadows. On my word and honor. And don't I owe it to your dearly departed father to keep a watchful eye on his beloved daughter? He'd be relieved to know all the talk is hearsay, and his child isn't _whoring_ herself to ghosts to further her career." He snickered softly beneath his breath. "What would darling Papa have thought of Erik? He would have told you that you could do better; that's for certain. Maybe he'd have been ashamed his daughter's good name was tangled with a murdering madman. It's a blessing Erik is gone, and _I_ took his place. You have nothing to worry about under my reign, pretty Christine."

He cheapened his own vow as his dark eyes passed over her from head to toe and said something different, but he made no move to approach as he inquired, "Have we an understanding then? I will leave you to sing and shine on the stage, and you keep my secret. In all honesty, I would concede to my terms if I were you. You have the most to lose if I renege. Imagine if society learned the soon-to-be Vicomtesse knows the passages of the opera house intimately and loiters un-chaperoned with the Opera Ghost when the Vicomte isn't watching her. It's gossip-worthy to be a ghost's unrequited obsession, but it would be scandal to even hint you return his feelings, most especially after he put his monstrosity of a face on vivid display. It might be endearing in fairytales to fall in love with monsters, but in reality, they'll pity you and know revulsion. You'll be as outcast as a leper. What will that mean for your Vicomte?"

He seemed to know the exact point to strike. Raoul… She could assure him that Erik wasn't the one pulling the ropes this time, and he might even believe her, but society wouldn't. They knew one ghost and one ghost only, and it didn't matter who was beneath the mask if murder still hung in the air.

Hesitating to give the answer he wanted, Christine demanded, "Do you expect me to turn a blind eye when innocent people disappear and become your victims?"

"They're sacrifices for the greater good. What did your Erik do to prove his threat value? Murder is a character trait. I have to fuel the charade, lest others grow suspicious."

She shook her head. "And again, you unjustly compare yourself to Erik. I am not naïve; I know his sins, but he had a lifetime of pains and cruelty to mold his behavior."

"Explain to me how murder is substantiated with ugliness? He was disfigured, but by your reasoning, society should pity him and allow him to kill whomever he pleases to make up for mockery suffered. You've romanticized the story because you feel something for the monster. I understand that, but you are not allowed to condemn me for simply following in his footsteps." Damian surveyed her again and offered, "How about if I promise a bit of discretion on my part? I'll leave you _and_ your little ballerina friends alone if you keep your pretty lips shut. Sing on the stage, earn some profits, and you will have nothing to fear from me."

She hesitated but gave a weak nod before muttering, "I have to go before Raoul starts to worry. …Did you know Erik well, monsieur?"

Damian shrugged as if the subject were one of apathy before admitting, "I was jealous of him. For all his misfortune, he never truly looked and saw the gifts he had. He squandered his blessings, and…I don't intend to do that."

Gifts… Christine's heart hurt, pulsating roughly against her rib-bones as she turned and scurried back into the passages. What gifts truly existed when one never knew love? Erik could have had it! She'd practically set it at his feet even without the word attached, and he'd _lied_ and pushed her away.

Everything suddenly made sense, and she had her answer how he could brusquely transform from a man who'd wanted her to one who hated her. Kisses typically transformed beasts into princes, and she'd wondered if she'd done hers wrong. But her beast _had_ become a prince, but a more gallant and selfless version. He'd shown her a monster that night the minute he'd rejected her heart, but…in truth, he'd _never_ been a monster at all.


	10. Chapter 10

Finally, for all you Erik lovers! :)

Chapter Ten

A _rumor_ was the thing to bring him back to a place he'd thought he'd never see again.

Erik kept his masked face half-hidden by the brim of his hat as he traversed the busy Paris walkways amidst a noonday crowd. He hated being about when the streets were packed from corner to corner with bustling bodies, but it wasn't until he approached the heart of the city that he was able to duck into the nearest alleyway and vanish from any spying eyes.

Six months away, and it felt as if he'd never left. Life was that way, realigning itself and carrying on despite changes that felt like an earthquake. He'd abandoned his heart somewhere in the catacombs, but he'd brought hope to steady every step he took on his journey. _Hope_…? He called himself gullible, as gullible as believing in angels… Hope for a man in a mask? Ignorant indeed.

In the span of six months, he'd been from one end of France to the other, searching for _something_ to fill the void a heart had carved in his chest, and what had he returned with but regret and a headache. To be back made his efforts seem fruitless when the hole within felt just as vast and empty.

Erik hurried down another alley, spotting the silhouette of the opera house as it shaded the reach of sunbeams. Music… He'd sought its comfort from one small town to the next, along countrysides and in the most rustic villages, desperate for pitches and melodies, but he'd been denied and had had to look on from the shadows when the instant his mask had been spotted, they'd shunned him. Nameless, faceless _they_. Anyone and everyone. He'd hoped for compassion or at least a civil reception, but as the story of his life went, he'd gotten disappointment and further rejection from the world that had labeled him outcast since his birth. More nightmares in a head full of them and never even an inkling of peace.

Opera… He'd find no peace there either, but at least beneath that familiar roof, he could envelop himself in music's lush embrace with no one to refuse or ridicule. He felt like a man starved for survival's essential ingredient. _Music_… Anticipation boiled within him for one note, one solitary aria, _anything_ to stop the yearning, and on its wings, he rushed his final steps to one of his hidden entrances.

He was desperately urgent, and yet he had to remind himself to be on guard. Ah yes, the rumor. It had been overheard in a town not far from Paris, and he hadn't wanted to believe it at first.

_The Opera Ghost is back_.

An eavesdropped conversation, and Erik had had to stifle an impulse to step forward and insist such news was impossible when the Opera Ghost was in their midst. But he'd listened, intercepting details of a family member's untimely disappearance from his job backstage at the opera. They had predicted the ghost was to blame, and it had seemed a logical conclusion.

The Opera Ghost was now a legend throughout the country, further reason a man in a mask couldn't get by amongst ordinary people. On more than one occasion, he'd been bluntly asked if he was the Opera Ghost; he'd had to fervently deny, and yet how could he distance himself from the name when his mask betrayed him? The story was exaggerated, tales of hundreds of crimes he'd supposedly committed, and so when the group had been speculating the ghost's return at the Paris opera, panic had been the chosen reaction all around. Terror for the monster. It was nothing new and rather expected…or it would have been if he had indeed been back. Their terror had been for an imposter.

The dark pathways around him were unlit and yet mapped out in his mind. He knew the exact nuances of every inch, and intuition screamed that someone had been there. He already had a suspicion who would dare, but he put the consideration out of his head for the moment. He had a more imperative task to attend to first.

Music… Oh, such a sweet siren song! He could hear echoes of a chorus at rehearsal faintly filling the catacombs. It was his sunlight in the dark, his answer to the eternal questions of creation, his very _purpose_ in living.

Quickening his pace, he broke his stealth to rush up the secret staircase that led into his box. The best seat in the opera house. He'd chosen Box 5 for its position, giving both a good view of the stage and the ideal reverberation of sound. Voices center stage filtered directly to him and bounced off the walls to resound everywhere. Perfection.

The chorus was just finishing their piece when he entered Box 5 and lingered, shrouded by the velvet curtains. His box had been tampered with. It was probably being sold out to patrons now that the ghost was supposedly gone. When it had been his domain, he'd arranged it in a way that kept the seats concealed in the thickest shadows. He could watch whenever he liked, unnoticed and invisible, suffocate himself in music's brilliance without the condescension that came every time he tried to appreciate other human beings and their talent. Now after someone's interference, he had to stand in the background instead of lounging in his perfect center spot. It was unacceptable as far as he was concerned. If a new ghost had taken his role, Erik was suddenly determined to become something more threatening, a vengeful demon of the devil perhaps, whatever it took to get his box back in his care.

Erik was still fuming when the next scene started its rehearsal onstage below. He closed his eyes as the orchestra's timbre washed over him and tingled his skin. Glorious music, it was like home and family, every pleasant facet life was supposed to offer, all in its beauty. It embraced in welcome and never betrayed him, never discriminated, never judged and called his ugliness unworthy to know its blessed exquisiteness. No, music was his true love…or so he thought until _she_ began to sing.

He was breathless with the first pulsation of her vibrato as it rippled and electrified the air and beat into him, rattling his bones with its power. He knew that voice; he'd constructed its every nuance, wrangling its brilliance out of her beautiful lips when she'd once tried to trap it inside. He'd been the one to pull full sounds out, to inspire her to strive for more. Higher, better, warm, round, filling the space and soaring to the ceiling. _Oh God_…

He needed to see her as he'd never needed anything before. Six months trying to forget her face, her blue eyes, her curls; it was the only thing he'd ever failed at. He'd been committed to the task. _Forget, forget, forget_. No matter that every time her image rose, he fought it into memory's vault, it always came back. He was _tortured_ by what he'd callously surrendered to another man's care. Regret for the first time in his existence gnawed at his soul. …Regret for doing the _right_ thing.

Swallowing hard against tears he refused to cry, Erik caught the edge of the velvet curtain between his fingertips and drew it ever so slightly back. _Christine_… He never let her name touch his lips, and yet he felt a tingle upon their surface. …_Her lips on his lips_, an unexpected turn of events. He'd never asked for it, didn't deserve it, and yet she'd given it. She'd made love speak in a single kiss, …and he'd used it to destroy both their hearts.

Erik gazed at her with a tenderness he could not suppress. She stood center stage, mid-aria, the melody pouring from her soul, and he longed to step into her spotlight and feel the power of her radiance. _His_ Christine…she'd always felt like his to keep, his blessing. He raced an imperative stare over her features, re-molding her image into his ravenous mind. So beautiful… Not even angels were so lucky. The stage lights glinted upon her curls, tempting him as they revealed the silken texture his skin recalled and craved. He'd gripped their gossamer coils and been wound in their web; if only they'd been strong enough to hold him, …but delicacy was their inherent flaw. He'd always slip free and only wish to be tangled again.

As he traced every contour with his eyes to the constant allure of her glorious voice, he tried to shift himself back in time to the days when her impetus had been solely to please him. She'd put all she was into her performance _for him_. Never in his life had he felt as special or important to another living being. She'd given him his reason to exist when for so long, he'd thought it was only to suffer. Without her, he'd had to seek something else, but he'd been left longing and aching. No one cared that he lived except Christine; her voice was the greatest mark he'd leave on this world. If nothing else, it proved he'd touched her life and not inflicted only damage.

"Beautiful, isn't she?"

Erik went numb in his place before darting a fierce glare to his sudden companion, standing in the shadows behind him. It was an image that was absolutely unnerving. Mask to mask, he felt like he was looking into a mirror. He suddenly understood why such an appearance was considered intimidating.

"Damian," he greeted coldly, "we need to have a talk."

The imposter in a mask shrugged innocently and led the way into the dark passage out of the box and below. Erik followed, guard raised, waiting for an attack. Two Opera Ghosts, the idea seemed ludicrous, and if that meant one of them had to go, he was doubtless Damian would not hesitate to make the first move. …And lose. Erik had no qualm about ridding the world of his 'old friend'.

It bothered Erik to realize how well Damian navigated the catacombs in the dark. One more detail to hate him for with the top spot reserved for the fact that he'd dared to leer at Christine. That was one Erik couldn't imagine forgiving.

The underground house was alight. _Erik's_ house. He felt any lingering wisp of tolerance quickly transforming into rage, but he kept the reins in hand as they entered the front door. The only redeeming point to be seen was that the house remained intact exactly as he'd left it; it was only a minor consolation when he pondered that someone else had been sleeping in his bed, and he let anger simmer and boil.

"I am amazed," Erik began stiffly. "Without _my_ expertise, you shouldn't have been able to find the way through the catacombs. You _should_ be dead."

Damian chuckled as he went to stir the hearth's fire back to life…as if this were indeed _his_ home. "Intelligently, I never underestimated you, and that's how I learned your tricks. I triggered your traps purposely to find out what I was up against and nearly hung myself twice in the process. This maze you built is difficult but not impossible to master. And now it's as if I've _always_ done it."

Sneering in contempt, Erik flatly commanded, "Get out of my house."

"Get out of _my_ house," Damian countered and showed no sway. "You forget you gave this up, Erik. If I saw the opportunity and took it, you can't begrudge me or come in here claiming an authority you no longer possess, _friend_. There's a new Opera Ghost, and it isn't you."

Erik huffed his aggravation as he stalked a fitful path about his sitting room and contemplated what needed to be done. He wouldn't care if he didn't regret _this_ murder.

"Don't even muse upon it," Damian suddenly snapped. "I don't want you to get too content with your ideas. If you try even one unsavory move, you're going to find _yourself_ as the Opera Ghost's victim. I've learned your techniques and perfected them. You forget I was a magician once, too."

"A poor one," Erik scoffed and earned a scowl from the other ghost in the room.

"My point," Damian snapped, "is that I've become quite an accomplished version of _you_ in your absence, and I will fight to keep my place."

"_Your _place?" Erik spat. "You pathetic leech! This is _my _life, a life I built and designed to its most finite points. I _created_ the Opera Ghost."

"And then you _left_," Damian reminded. "You didn't want to be the Opera Ghost anymore. Has that changed? Did you return to play the part again?"

"No," Erik replied without hesitation. "That guise _destroyed_ me. I used it to make myself above every other human being, and in the end, it got me nothing."

"Money," Damian offered with a nonchalant shrug. "Respect."

"_Fear_ without even using my face to gain it. The world may detest me because of my appearance; they don't need to cower to a fabricated persona as well. It doesn't make anything better."

"What is this new self-righteous tirade, Erik? I _know_ you. You built yourself a pedestal above man and God."

"Yes, and I don't want to be on that pedestal anymore! It's a lie! I'm _not_ above man or God, or so I've come to learn. I have a life with nothing to show for it because I wanted to be a ghost." Ghosts didn't just haunt; they existed on a different plane than the rest of humanity, _alone_. It hadn't mattered before Christine had changed his every desire. "The Opera Ghost needs to be dead and buried."

"Why? Because _you_ are through playing the role? Why not give someone else a chance? Consider it as bequeathing your assets to someone more deserving."

"_You_," Erik stated for him with a glare.

"You _owe_ me," Damian declared, jerking his mask from his face. Erik loathed him all the more because he could do that and expose no valid reason for a mask's presence.

"I owe you nothing."

"You'd have rotted away in a cage if not for me! No opera house. No music. No pretty Christine." Damian heaved her name, and Erik could tell it was deliberate as it hit its mark at the root of Erik's chest and exposed its wound. "I see your time away changed nothing. Still melancholy over the girl? Because from what I've heard, she's got a rich fiancé. Wouldn't your best chance to avoid repeating the pitiable performance of an unrequited lover be to _leave_ again?"

"And give you my life here, you mean."

"Naturally, why do you care if I'm playing the Opera Ghost when you don't want to be here anyway? Are you jealous I might be better at it than you ever were? The role calls for a sinner and murderer; I can't see my interpretation as _ruining_ your reputation."

"Does giving you _my_ life mean giving you Christine as well?" Erik demanded harshly, narrowing his glare. "She is an integral part to the role. The innocent girl whose beauty attracted the eye of a beast. In your zeal to capture my character to perfection, have you put a claim over her as well?"

"She knows I'm not _you_, if that's what you mean, and I would be an overambitious fool to risk frightening her off. I need her to sing and give credence to this pitiable production. _She_ is the box office draw, you know, and therefore I don't intend to harm a single curl on her pretty head."

Erik's expression never softened. "The fact that you've looked at her long enough to see _curls_ is enough to infuriate me. _She_ does not factor into your interpretation. So help you God if you lay a finger upon her."

A snicker escaped Damian's lips. "Not only did time away keep your melancholy intact; it also seems to have enhanced your possessive paranoia over another man's fiancée. Is this _love_ or _obsession_, Erik? You've walked the thin line between the two before, and how did that end for you? You gave her up to save her from _you_, didn't you? Yet now you're once again throwing out threats for her." His sinister smile only grew to see Erik's somberness. "My 'interpretation' of Opera Ghost includes _not_ frightening my star away. Besides, her name is already synonymous with the Opera Ghost story; I need to do nothing but let them speculate."

"Even that is too much," Erik concluded. "Christine is going to have the life she deserves _without_ the Opera Ghost."

"That's impossible, thanks to you. She'll always be part of the legend. Why not capitalize on it?"

"You're a bastard," Erik spat.

"And you are living in denial and clinging to a place you no longer belong. You don't want to be the Opera Ghost, Erik," he repeated. "I haven't stolen anything from you that you didn't surrender the night you left. I don't see what grievance you continue to hold when I am not _your_ enemy."

"You are _music's_ enemy."

"I'm just picking up where you left off. You had a salary and killed to keep the management in line. I'm doing the same but without the gushy serenades to a girl who doesn't want you. A love story is a waste of time and resources. I have bigger goals than a virgin soprano with golden vocal cords."

Huffing his aggravation, Erik coldly demanded, "And what am I now to do with you, Damian? Let you prance about the catacombs playing pretend in a mask and killing as you please? Or do I end your charade and let the Opera Ghost die as he should? I know which answer I'm inclined to choose."

"And I offer another yet. Leave and forget this place. You have no tie or responsibility to a single person under this roof. What do you care if I kill them all? I already said I wouldn't touch Christine, and she has a Vicomte to be her potential hero if need be. You're not needed or wanted here."

If his words hadn't been true, Erik would have killed him where he stood. But as it was, every letter sliced a hole in his veins and reminded him that he had _nothing_, not even the music anymore. This was not his home.

Defeat hung heavy about his shoulders, but he kept a defiant posture as he insisted, "You're right. I have no care left in this place, and if the roof comes down about your head, it will be just and warranted. Play your game, Opera Ghost, but do it well. They are not forgiving, nor do they forget, and one wrong move will have you at their mercy. And Christine…her Vicomte will not hesitate to send a mob after your head. _I_ am supposed to be gone. Any Opera Ghost will be duly punished, no matter who is behind the mask. …If you end up dead for your senselessness, I won't be sorry."

With a final glance at his underground home and recast life, Erik stalked out the door and into the darkness of the catacombs. The last time he'd left, he'd thought he'd done the world a justice by burying a ghost. This time he wasn't sure what he'd allowed to breathe in the shadows. But he wasn't supposed to care, was he? They hated their monster, and if he'd put a devil in his place, perhaps they were getting what they deserved. 

* * *

"The Opera Ghost!"

Christine cringed and lifted guilty eyes as Raoul charged into the sitting room. "What…?" She wasn't sure of the proper question, trying to decipher what he was insinuating, so she bit her lip and kept silent, waiting with her nerves building against her ribcage.

Huffing in disdain, he came to sit beside her on the couch, searching her with his stare. "Did you know about this?"

"What…exactly?" she stammered, attempting a blameless smile.

"He's _back_."

She couldn't reason an explanation quickly enough, nothing beyond a continued cringe, and Raoul suddenly caught her shoulders in his palms and accused, "You _knew_?"

"It's not what you think."

"No?" he posed doubtfully. "There are rumors going around the city about more disappearances at the opera. Are they wrong?"

"No, but-"

"But what? He _is_ back, isn't he? And you didn't tell me? Christine… After what happened-"

"No, no, it's not Erik," she assured, fixing him in her stare and willing him to believe. "_Erik_ is _not_ back."

"Then what is going on? I don't understand."

Christine did not hesitate to touch him, cupping his face in her hands and using the caress to her advantage. "It's a new Opera Ghost. No one at the opera knows the truth; they simply assume it to be Erik."

"But _you_ know differently?" Raoul demanded, and she could see the blame in his blue eyes, one sentence away from erupting.

She kept the most condemning parts to herself and simply replied, "I saw him. It's not Erik."

"Then who is it?"

"A Gypsy conman. He knew my father in the days when we traveled the country."

"Christine," Raoul sighed, "why didn't you tell me any of this?"

"Because I knew you wouldn't let me continue to sing at the opera," she answered earnestly. "_I_ am not in danger, Raoul."

"Of course you are! We went from one madman to another if this one is equally as complacent about abductions and murder." The hands on her shoulders rose to cup her cheeks in a matching pose as he concluded, "I can't let you go back to the opera house."

"Why?" she nearly shouted in her rising aggravation. "He isn't going to hurt me. He needs me to sing."

Raoul shook his head with an annoyed grimace. "Why does all of this sound vaguely familiar? He _needs_ you to sing, Christine? What have you gotten yourself involved in again?"

"Nothing," she quickly replied. "I just want to sing, and you're turning this into another dramatic tragedy."

"It will be if you're back to singing for the Opera Ghost no matter _who _he is this time. I can't let you do that again, Christine."

He couldn't understand because she had no intention of filling in the rest of the details. Let him believe her adamancy was only her love of the stage because she was doubtless if he knew the new ghost had threatened his title and reputation, he wouldn't care. He'd put her welfare first _again_ and willingly give up everything else. She couldn't allow his world to be pummeled from the shattered shambles it now existed in to dust.

"It's not your choice," she dared to argue, knowing she'd hurt him but unable to find a better point. As predicted, she saw her cold assessment strike and erupt pain in his stare.

"Christine-"

"Raoul, please stop. You can't protect me from everything as much as you'd prefer to believe otherwise. You'd only be taking me from the one thing that makes me happy."

"The one thing?" he softly inquired with another flash of desolation. "Does the opera mean more to you than a future with me?"

"Why would you ask such a thing?"

He shook his head. "It doesn't matter. …Keep singing if that's what you want. When the alternative means you'll resent me for the rest of our lives, I'll take my chances with the new ghost."

"Raoul," she tried, but he drew away and left her alone in the sitting room with her regrets.


	11. Chapter 11

I got the most amazing birthday gift this week. My dear friend Gemma made me a book trailer for "Manifestations of a Phantom's Soul". Anyone who would like to see it, it is on youtube and posted on my Facebook page as well.

...I love writing chapters like this one most of all! :) Enjoy!

Chapter Eleven

Rehearsal absorbed most of Christine's focus, but after Raoul's reaction to the Opera Ghost's resurrection, ghosts were once again meandering to the forefront of her mind. Had they ever truly left her alone for an instant? She swam in and out of memory, suffering an urge to relive her life all over again. If she could only recapture fleeting moments and cling to their emotions a second longer, to savor the feelings with the knowledge they'd one day be so far beyond her grasp. Why did life have to keep spinning forward with never the choice to pause its progression and spin backwards for awhile?

The desire was so intense that when she began to decipher the sensation of someone watching her, she believed memory had finally become insanity. Obsession clawing its way into the real world. It was the only explanation for a constant tingle on the surface of her skin. Caresses with never a touch… She'd felt their tenderness before and been left wanting as desperately as she did now.

The day was dreary; a cloud blanket prevented sunbeams from peeking into rehearsal, and the stagehands turned up the house lights to give glows to a dim palette. Onstage, Christine glanced to the windows in the ceiling in time for the first shower to start and splatter the glass plaits with its wares. The sound echoed down, a gentle pitter-patter that was music in its own right. Erik had taught her that every sound was its own song, and she closed her eyes and pieced together the uneven pattern of raindrops, constructing a template of rhythm. Erik would have called it beautiful.

One long breath. As she let her lids flutter open, her gaze settled on Box 5 of its own accord, and a gasp held taut in her lungs. For the briefest instant, she swore she saw a silhouette…a silhouette in a mask. Rational sense said it was likely real; there was an Opera Ghost running the catacombs after all. It shouldn't jar her to catch him watching, but… The residual feeling in her soul didn't believe in imposters.

As rehearsal dragged onward, she was half-distracted, casting looks to the box and its velvet curtains at every opportunity, but finding nothing to ignite hope. No, she never _saw_ anything, but she _felt_, and when rationale insisted she was creating the feelings herself, she refused to listen. She felt _Erik_, and the idea was so pleasant and yearned for that she fell into the fantasy and _believed_ it.

_Erik watching her_… She sang for that illusion and emptied her heart into her voice, exceeding herself and giving her all to a dream from the past. _His mismatched eyes playing over her skin_… Goose bumps lined every inch as if to proclaim they felt him. _Oh God_… Why couldn't the fantasy be real?

Christine survived the day, sustaining herself on a story that was no longer hers, and when rehearsal ended, she was disappointed to admit it wasn't real. This was supposed to be her ideal future: singing in the opera, going home to a Vicomte who loved her and was eager to marry her. Why did it seem like a life only half-lived?

Melancholy was valid and un-assuaged as she avoided conversation with her cast mates and slipped out the back entrance of the theatre. The rain was a light drizzle, misting along her face and giving its chill, but the indigo clouds beginning to hover insisted a downpour wasn't far off. Lifting the hood of her cloak over her curls, she quickened her pace onto the city streets, hoping to make it to the de Chagny mansion before the skies parted and dropped a waterfall.

Everything was relatively quiet, the peace before the storm, as others intelligently sought shelter and abandoned the usually-packed walkways. Without other bodies about, it took only a handful of steps before Christine realized someone was following her. It was a feeling and the slightest echo to her every footfall on the already-wet ground. She peeked over her shoulder but found nothing but empty sidewalk. Perhaps she was still lost in her earlier fantasy and not quite back in the present. More ghosts chasing her… Was it a desire or another nightmare?

She tried to concentrate on her destination as drizzle became plump, heavy raindrops and the faintest rumble of thunder announced its arrival, but she couldn't rid herself of her suspicion. It listened for any sign of another presence and convinced her to act first and call herself 'crazy' later.

Darting through a short alley, she quickened her pace to a run and ignored the deafening echoes of her hard-soled boots as her hood tumbled back and released her curls to the shower. She emerged at the alley's end, and never pausing an instant, she ducked against one of the storefronts and waited for her pursuer to exit the alley behind her. Anyone trailing her path would think she was already halfway down the next block, and holding her breath with a rise of nerves and the first stirrings of that internal voice that wanted to dub her crazy, she ignored the rain saturating her cloak and curls and fixed her stare on the alley. Rapid footfalls echoed out to her, …and then a body appeared like a shadow bursting the transparent filigree between dream and reality.

Her breath escaped as a huff as she narrowed accusing eyes on a masked figure and shouted, "I wasn't supposed to be a part of these Opera Ghost games anymore, and yet I find you stalking me through the city. Why…?" Her question broke and disintegrated as her masked pursuer suddenly fixed her in his guilty mismatched stare. "Oh God…"

Erik stared at her as impeding raindrops criss-crossed the gap between them and made everything heavy beneath their weight. This was nothing like he'd envisioned the moment of being once again tangled in her blue eyes. It had been a fantasy when he was supposed to keep his distance, a fantasy that would never creep into reality. He could drug his mind on scenarios and reunions, but confine them to imagination. They weren't allowed to live and breathe. He would have believed this was another if not for the tangibility of raindrops, striking with a vengeance and bruising at every point of contact.

"Christine…" What to say. He wasn't supposed to be here, not chasing her through Paris' streets in some misguided plot to keep her safe, not watching her in the opera's shadows, not _longing_ for her when she belonged to someone else. Every facet was its own violation.

"What…are you doing here?" she heaved her question across the tense chasm between them. "You _don't want_ me! Don't you remember that? And yet you're following in my shadow _again_. …Why?"

The tears filling her blue eyes shouldn't have been decipherable amidst the steady raindrops as they mingled together in their fall over porcelain features, but Erik _felt_ them and the blame they laid in every shimmer. Pretending they were not attacking and leaving more scars, he simply said, "I wanted to make sure you were safe."

"That's not your place anymore," she snapped back, and as a loud crack of thunder accentuated her words, she jumped and lost a startled gasp, glancing to the dark sky.

"You need to get indoors," Erik insisted, louder over the roar of nature.

"No!" she shouted, locking her attention on him.

"Christine, stubborn girl, the storm-"

"I don't care!" she shrieked, shaking her head and making raindrops tumble from her curls. "Why did you come back? You _don't want_ me!"

"I told you that I wanted you to be safe-"

"You are _not_ an angel!" she yelled, and even without a glimpse of the sky, the next streak of lightning made her flinch before thunder followed.

"No, I'm a _monster_!" he corrected, matching her shout and aggression. "Do you remember that part, Christine? Or has too much time passed and rebuilt your fairytale ideals from their base? Curse my name, and remind me why I'm not supposed to be here."

"You foolish man!" she retorted, this time giving no reaction to a thunder so ferocious that it shook the ground beneath their feet. But with thunder's retreat, anger showed its cracks, and despair trickled through her tears as she cried, "What did you do? …What did you do to me…to both of us?"

Her desolation cut him to his bones as he somberly replied, "I did what was right."

"You did what was _selfish_," she countered in a sob.

"No," he snapped without regret. "This was the most _selfless_ thing I've ever done."

"And yet you're back," she accused pointedly.

"I didn't come back for you." It was blunt, and it was cruel. He saw the admission strike her like a blow and sag her posture as she cried silently beneath the volume of the storm. Wind whipped her soaked curls about her face, and as she shivered, he decided, "We need to get out of this storm."

Her lashes lowered long enough to propel more tears down her cheeks, and as she met his constant stare again, she softly insisted, "I don't want to go home."

It was half an invitation, and he couldn't stop himself from grabbing hold of it. Timid and suddenly terrified, he extended one shaking hand and said, "Come with me."

He knew it was wrong, and the flash of emotion in her blue eyes only confirmed his guilt. He was supposed to be gone…

Christine stared at that hand a pulsating moment as lightning flashed again and thunder followed and shook her world. He'd made the same offer the night angels had fallen and fallible mortals exposed their sins; she knew if she took it, her world would alter and throw her back into chaos. To deny him was to be strong, but strong meant the suicide of her heart. …She didn't want to be strong.

As she crossed the raindrop waterfall between them and slid her wet palm into his, she caught the mixture of relief and longing in mismatched eyes before he looked away as if desperate to keep his secrets. She cursed herself because she was pleased. Her mind recalled the Gypsy's words, that Erik had been lovelorn and heartbroken when he'd left, more proofs the scene in the catacombs that had haunted her might not have been the trauma it had appeared. He called it 'selfless', and she hated that he truly believed it.

His hand was cold, and without a thought, she wove her fingers between his and pressed fingertips to his knuckles. Months before, she'd been unable to make such a fierce grip, hindered by weakness and a shy heart afraid to feel. Now she did not hesitate and did not regret it.

Erik drew her quickly down empty walkways, parting the rainfall with their intrusive shapes. While the sky loomed in dark colors and hung low with a haze, it reminded Christine of wandering the catacombs with him, untouched by the rest of the world, delighting in places others would find reprehensible. She was soaked to the skin, her curls too heavy to keep their coils and sticking to her cheeks, and yet she felt content…and happy.

A lightning bolt darted the sky and crashed somewhere nearby in a crack so loud that Christine cried out and instinctively huddled closer to Erik.

"It's all right," he gently bid, and without the uncertainty that otherwise would have plagued every motion, he drew her to his side by joined hands and fitted his free arm about her waist.

Her breath skipped in its reflexive intake, but she refused to meet his gaze, feeling it upon her, surveying her for answers she wasn't sure she could give. She wasn't supposed to condone this closeness, and yet she couldn't find enough words to speak against it. She pressed _nearer_ and lost another breath as he leaned and brushed an awkward kiss to her brow. With the mask in place, it restricted real contact, but the implication was there and valid and burned through the storm's chill to brand her skin.

Erik hurried them onward, condemning tenderness to its core. He blamed a self-inflicted starvation for touch. Months away, and he hadn't known even a grazing of skin against his. Before Christine, he'd suffered years of such denial, and it hadn't mattered. Now after learning the pleasure of skin to skin, it was torturous withdrawal to own so many inches of flesh and know a sting of loneliness on every cell. Months of deprivation, could he truly be blamed for savoring the sensation of her soft body curled against his side, …for trying to steal more when it _must_ be taken away again? What a bleak future to consider living on and never being _touched_ again!

Thunder rolled its percussive cacophony across the dark sky, and though he felt Christine shiver, he pretended it was a response to _his_ presence. When she curved tighter to him, he made that another product of delight. Lies to sustain him for when he surrendered her again.

Through the city's main streets and onward, where buildings broke up their constant barricade and houses had space in between, and he felt Christine's curiosity radiating from her without a real sign to reveal it. He almost smiled.

Up ahead was a gravel path, dipped in spots from the rainfall and cupping puddles. He drew her along its surface, avoiding the deepest collections of water and steadying her as her heels sunk backwards into shifting rocks and made her sway and stumble. Rain was pelting them, each droplet sharp and harsh in its descent, leaving Erik grateful when the house came into view at the gravel pathway's end. It wasn't much: small, old, but for the time being, it was his. He could guarantee her safety within those walls, and that made it the most wonderful place in existence.

Neither of them spoke as he brought her up its rickety front steps and pulled her inside away from a storm that raged on without their presence. He was loath to let her go within the dark foyer, but her continuous shivers insisted the damage raindrops had left. He had no choice but to break contact and rush to light a fire in the sitting room hearth.

Christine pursed her lips to trap a whimper that longed to follow him and reveal her disappointment. She'd been lulled to a state of calm with his erratic heartbeat against her like a broken metronome. Without its addled tempo, she wavered on her feet as sense tiptoed in and reminded her of the fiancé awaiting her return, likely worried over the storm and watching for her at the window. …What was she doing?

The crack of a spark chased sense away again as a warm glow engulfed and called her closer. Her curious gaze scanned the small sitting room and found it empty save for a large chair poised near the hearth. The bare hardwood floor was dingy, but a broom against the far corner insisted it had recently been used with a pile of dead leaves and dust surrounding its bristles.

Her stare settled on her masked companion and found him studying her intently, gauging her reaction. "I apologize for the crudity of my home," he stammered, and now without the storm to drown half the sound, his voice seemed loud and jarring…and so very real. "You know the sort of accommodations I prefer, but this was the best I could do on short notice and without drawing suspicion. In Paris, a man in a mask means one thing and one thing only."

"Opera Ghost," she breathed for him, "but…that's not you anymore. Someone else has taken your throne."

He nodded. "And my home."

Christine wanted to press the issue, but his expression suddenly darkened. She read his concern even with the mask in place and savored knowing it was for her.

"Oh, you must be freezing!" he exclaimed, and on the wings of worry, he rushed toward her before seeming to remember himself and halting with hands halfway across the distance. They fisted in midair and were retracted as eyes caressed her drenched shape instead, and he replied, "I don't have a closet full of gowns for you here, but…I can find something satisfactory."

He moved with flustered anxiety to a narrow staircase, and though she was unsure if she should follow, the next low moan of thunder made the decision for her and had her two steps behind. Every stair creaked beneath their weight and revealed age and decay as she silently wondered how long this house had spent uninhabited. Years? A decade maybe? Curiosity mused how Erik had come across it and devised tales to assuage her nerves as she trailed the upper landing to the one solitary doorway at its end.

"Again, forgive the crudity," he was mumbling, fumbling with the doorknob with never a glance back at her. He pushed the door open, and she suddenly understood his agitation. His bedroom. Its only furnishings were a bed and an armoire while a small door at the opposite end cracked slightly gave her a peek of a bath chamber. Nothing elaborate or overdone. She recalled once wandering into his bedchamber beneath the opera by mistake, and it had been luxurious in its décor, velvets and thick brocades, only the best. This was the dungeon cell that a house underground had never been.

He still would not look at her as he opened the armoire's doors and dug through its contents, finally retracting a simple shirt and pants. _His_. "I'm sorry I have nothing better to offer you. I hadn't anticipated bringing you home with me." With a seemingly indifferent shrug, he corrected, "I hadn't anticipated _any of this_. I should not be speaking with you right now. You have a life, and it no longer intersects my own."

"That's a lie," she concluded. "You've been watching me."

"It wasn't my intention to play ghost games with you again," he immediately defended, finally turning to her regard. "It was necessity, not desire."

"Why?"

Huffing his growing annoyance, he snapped back, "Because you might have had a warrant of safety from the previous Opera Ghost, but the new one that stole my place… He's not _me_, and he would have no qualm against hurting you if he saw something to gain from it."

Christine was uncertain if she should share her visit with the new Opera Ghost, doubtless she'd only stir the embers of Erik's temper. For the moment, she kept the words within and concentrated on the cold seeping through her skin with its reaching, damp fingertips. Perhaps an argument in the middle of a rainstorm had not been the best idea…

Shivering incessantly, she pushed her heavy cloak from her shoulders and cringed to hear its water-laden plop on the wooden floor. A chill stung her without its protection, but she felt weightless when it was saturated through every fiber.

Erik was riveted to the image before him even when he knew he should not stare and purloin more pictures for his eager mind. But…she was so beautiful; she truly had no idea. Her wet gown clung to her every curve and gave peeks of the undergarments beneath, so sweetly feminine and delicate. Desire longed to rip every inch away, sure they would peel apart like wet paper, and expose the perfection they hid. Oh God, …he wasn't supposed to be here.

Abruptly turning back to the armoire, he grabbed a set of clothing for himself before noting with an annoyed grunt, "I don't have another mask. …Another disadvantage to not being in my own home. That bastard Damian has _everything_ at _his_ disposal."

He heard her approaching footsteps and stiffened as she insisted, "It doesn't matter. You _must_ take your mask off. It's as soaked as everything else."

"And you speak it so calmly!" he snapped, flipping about to face her but never without a protective hand upon the mask lest she act and do it herself. He knew her far too well to be naïve. "It truly has been too long away if you've also idealized this face in your restructured fairytales."

"Why are you so certain I'm fictionalizing the world again? I gave up my childish beliefs when my angel fell from grace," she reminded with a hint of perturbation.

"No, you didn't. You were always far too innocent for your own good. And now you'll keep clinging to the role and play the story all over again. Same hero, new villain, and _I_ do not fit into the tale this time."

His gaze roamed her upturned face, and his fingers tingled with the urge to make the same path, perhaps comb through her tangled, wet tresses and reshape their natural coils… He _wanted_, but he never took.

Instead, he stalked to the solitary window in the room, peering out the curtain and flatly stating, "It's still raining. As soon as the storm stops, I'll take you back to your fiancé. …Now get changed before you take ill."

That was all. Tossing clothing upon his mattress, he left her there, closing the door as he escaped with his own set of dry clothes in fists that ached too much for skin. It was a wasted want when he had no intention of giving in. …Not again.

Christine stared at the door, stifling an instinct to race after him. Should she be relieved that he was still the same stubborn, aggravating man who had left her over six months before? She would have been if the memories from their last night beneath the opera house weren't still so fresh and reevaluated enough times to call it an obsession. He claimed following her was to keep her safe. It said far more than an obvious lie that he didn't want her. She wondered if he realized his own contradictions and felt foolish for ever once believing the things he'd shouted to lose her.

Determined to have explanations and answers for her keeping, she quickly discarded her wet clothing, shivering with every inkling of skin exposed to open air. Raindrops beat their syncopation on the roof above her head, and she prayed they held out to play a little longer. Her impatience made her hasty and awkward as she yanked on pants that were too long and sagged on her figure and a shirt that she had to cuff above her wrists.

Fumbling with the buttons, she let her eyes linger on the bed with its simple linen blankets. It was difficult to imagine Erik sleeping anywhere not buried from the sun, …_sleeping_ at all. From the few times she'd ventured to stay in his home, she recalled he'd always gone to bed after her and awaken before her as if afraid to sleep in her presence. Sleep was vulnerable; he hated to be vulnerable. It was the same now as she contemplated how a wet mask must feel against flesh that must be far too sensitive from its confinement. _Stubborn man_.

Her fingers were a makeshift brush, disentangling interwoven curls and combing through their mass even as she grabbed her wet clothing and scampered for the door at the same time.

The floorboards groaned beneath her every step. She knew before she ever arrived at the sitting room doorway that he was aware of her presence, but he kept his mismatched gaze on the leaping flames of the hearth. Back to the image of pristine gentleman in a dry suit and that infernal mask. If he'd never given a hint, she'd have had no idea the mask was as damp as their clothing and would have let him cling to his preferred fabrication of normalcy. But as it was, she was already convicted not to back down.

Without a thought, she shattered the peace of trickling raindrops and demanded, "Where is the man who was victim to his desires, heaving ultimatums, forcing me away with insult as a new weapon? Are you suddenly transformed, or was that man never _you_ to begin with?"

She saw him breathe, too even to be anything but forced calm, before he replied, "That last night at the opera was a madness I readily accepted."

"It was a _lie_," she accused without doubt.

"No, it was acting without restraint, _taking_ instead of asking. I grew tired of waiting for you to grow up and decided to show you exactly what I wanted."

"Lie," she immediately accused. "It was as staged as the opera."

Erik hated confrontation and felt an urge to lash out, but as he flipped about to face her, the impetus dissipated with one look. Why did she have to be so beautiful, and why did he still have to want her so much? To see her in his clothing created a deeper possessive impulse within him. She was _his_. It was the overriding conclusion in a touch-starved mind.

Desire was his inspiration, but as he stalked close to her, all he did was take the wet garments from her arms and bring them toward the fire. His fingers trembled, but he was intoxicated on the thought that these were _her_ clothes; they had touched _her_ skin. It might be the nearest to contact that he received again. As he laid her gown delicately near the fire's drying warmth, he cast glances back to her observing stare and couldn't stop admiring her in his clothing. He knew the second she was gone again, he would wrap himself in the shirt she wore and hope to drown in her lingering scent. …Perhaps her flesh would leave invisible cells upon the material, and he could brand them onto his own and wear their imprint forever…

"Tell me the truth, Erik," she gently commanded, and he shuddered to hear his name. Not a single person in his travels had come close enough to ask such a pertinent fact, and yet he knew he would have hated its sound in any other timbre. His name was a curse to bear, so common and boring, unless _she_ was the one speaking it. Then it became music.

Gesturing with a shaking hand to the only piece of furniture in the room, he offered, "Sit down. It might be awhile until the storm breaks."

"I hope it's _hours_," she decided, slowly approaching his chair and eyeing him with every timid footfall. "Long enough for you to say _everything_ you'd rather I not know."

He shook his head as she sat within the soft cushions, never breaking a locked gaze. "I'll tell you fairytales of my journey through the country these past months, if you'd like."

"More lies? Why not facts and not more fairytales?"

He cringed to admit, "Because the facts are unpleasant and not a proper bedtime story. I prefer to write you a new story."

"And I prefer _no_ stories at all, unless they are true. Who is choosing fairytales now?" she inquired with a slight smirk that intrigued him.

"Perhaps you were right to favor them when they are more satisfying than real life. I've begun to see the charm. I wish I lived in a fairytale."

"I _don't_," she protested, surprising him with her fervor as she lifted her knees to her chest and curled tightly into the cushion. He was reminded how small she was; she could be swallowed in his chair.

Busying himself by meticulously spreading the rest of her clothing before the fire, he posed, "No? You're practically living your fairytale at every second, and that doesn't please you?"

His fingers paused a held breath upon the silk of her chemise, his frame racked in a shudder with the sight of lace trim as he imagined its white color against the ivory of her skin.

"No," she admitted and called his attention from fantasies. "Is that what you'd hoped when you lied and insisted you didn't want me? Did you think you were granting me what I wanted?"

Erik heaved a loud sigh of annoyance and shot her a glare. "It doesn't matter anymore. Let it rest in its grave."

"I can't," Christine countered, and her true somberness poked through any attempted façade. "You _lied_ to me," she blamed again and waited for the truth she already knew.

He wouldn't look at her, but she took his slow nod as a victory and quickly demanded, "Why, Erik?"

"_Why_? What an absurd question! Isn't it obvious? You deserved more than a monster. I selfishly decided _you_ would be my salvation. You tried to tell me it was too much pressure, too much responsibility. _You_ should not have to save a soul so far gone. You deserved to be happy, Christine, not constructing a life for a sinner and murderer in line for condemnation."

Nothing he said was unexpected. Christine had pondered every route since the day the Gypsy Opera Ghost imposter had given her stepping stones to the truth. But to hear it spoken aloud, to gauge his amount of self-loathing, to understand that, to him, 'monster' was the greatest insult and _she_ had been the one to put it on him… She swallowed against tears and insisted, "That's not very fair. _You_ decided _my_ future and gave me no say."

"And what decision would you have made?" he retorted sharply. "You were ready to throw your future away by marrying a madman."

Christine shook her head. "Not a _real_ madman, as we've established. You were playing a role."

"Not all of it was a role. I pressed you to my body, and _that_ was no role! That was what _I_ wanted. Go on, and dub me a monster for it."

The memory alone made her shiver, but to hear the indiscretion in his voice and uttered with so much fervency sped the course of blood in her veins and flushed every inch of her skin. All she could reply, soft and almost inaudible over the raindrops, was, "You are not a monster."

"So you will condone my audacious behavior?" he scoffed and shouted, "You are so _naïve_ to _life_, Christine. Is it any wonder why I made the choice for you and determined how I wanted you to see me?"

She was unaffected by his outburst and concluded, "It must bother you that it didn't work. You wanted me to see a monster, and I only ever saw a man. Not even your _face_ changed that. I chose _you_, and you had to _lie_ to try to control me again."

Erik glared at her as he sought some point to protest, growing angrier by the second when he couldn't find a decent argument. And _her_! She lifted dark brows in a matter-of-fact triumph that drove him mad. With a sudden growl, he lunged at the chair, striking his palms to each armrest and trapping her in his narrowed stare.

"Oh, you saw a monster that night," he hissed through a clenched jaw. "You trembled and shivered in my arms. Did you think I'd forget _your_ fear when faced with my desires? I ripped your gown open, and you were _terrified_ what I would do next."

She seemed shaken by his fierce approach, shivering in the chair's cushion and watching his aggression unfold through widened eyes, but she replied as if it proved her point, …as if _he_ needed to be reminded. "You pressed your face against my bare back, and I have worn _your_ scar since that moment. It wasn't a monster who begged me to know he acted out of love. It was a man who loved me so much that he let me go."

Christine saw her candidness shake him as his shallow, tremulous breaths burned her ears in their honesty. His lips could utter lies, but she had the emotion in his mismatched eyes to speak the truth for him.

Her gaze settled on his mask as he leaned with an undimmed threat so near, and she reached toward it, barely grazing its surface before he jolted and jerked back. As predicted, the soft material was cold and damp, and with that knowledge confirmed, she bid, "Will you please take off that mask now? It must be uncomfortable."

It was, but Erik had no intention of admitting it as he dug his fingernails into the cushioned armrests and raked her face with his stare. She was too complacent, so much that it unnerved his ability to adopt a new shield and impenetrable armor. She saw right through every one; it was a new talent he hadn't anticipated.

Wanting only to shake her resolve, he fixed her in his glare and snapped, "If, as you claim, my face does not show you a monster, then uncover it yourself and prove your words."

He expected her to give her pretense away. Perhaps a shiver, a tremble, a hesitation, something in blue eyes to insist her derision, but as if his command was commonplace, she obeyed, lifting the mask away. He felt the sting of heated air, and he was the one to cringe.

"This looks awful," she bid, and he thought he'd finally found disgust. …But her stare was gentle as it grazed his mangled face. "Your skin is chapped from that infernal mask."

Her free hand extended toward his cheek, and with a sudden cry, he recoiled, releasing armrests and flipping about to the hearth.

Christine read terror in every tensed muscle down his back and couldn't understand why when she had persevered and won over his little challenge. His face was not an obstacle to overcome, …not anymore. Her hand fitted about the mask she still held, her fingertips curiously tracing its curved shape and then its dampened inner lining. It felt intimate to dare such a caress when the mask was such an integral part of the man.

"What is it like to view the world from behind a mask?" she softly breathed, still studying the object even as she felt his stare upon her. "You use this simple, little thing to hide from _everything_, including me. It builds inscalable walls and wide chasms we can never seem to cross. _This_." She flipped it over again in her palm and delicately outlined the cavity where a green eye was typically encased. "It's almost ridiculous, isn't it?"

She finally lifted focus to the fire-lit contours of his damaged face. The lines and angles were less severe in the warm glow, romanticized in a way that made her anxious. He often dubbed himself ugly; she did not see ugliness in the firelight. Her gaze roamed that face, her fingers itching with a desire to do the job when all they had was a cold, damp mask against their joints.

"You don't want me to touch you," she said for him and saw her blatancy fluster him.

"I don't want you to _pity_ me," he corrected.

"I don't."

"What do you think you'd feel as you touched my face, Christine? Desire? Love? Adoration?" He shook a doubtful head. "No, not for something so heinously designed. You'd feel _pity_, compassion perhaps, as anyone with a good heart would, and…that isn't enough."

His assessment hurt, and she reminded, "I offered _love_ once, and _you_ decided mine wasn't enough. You called me a child and said you wanted a woman."

Scoffing against the idea, he chided, "I thought you were so certain where I spoke my lies and where I didn't that night. You've been tossing my own guilty actions at me all evening. I _lied_ to give you the future you deserved."

Her expression never softened as she stated another point of pain and months of obsession. "You called my kiss an abomination."

"It was, but not for the reasons I let you believe. _Nothing_ but a mask should ever touch this face. It is grotesque and repulsive, and you dared to place your lips upon it."

She watched those so-called grotesque features cringe and scowl their self-disgust. It amazed her; he hated _himself_ and was revolted by his own face more than anyone else ever could be. Her gaze halted on his misshapen mouth and studied its details in that soothing firelight. She saw nothing grotesque. She saw things askew and unconventionally formed, the upper lip swollen abnormally and tendons tugging it beyond its boundaries. That was just one demented facet on a disfigured face. A kiss was supposed to make it seem almost ordinary, but maybe she'd gone about things backwards if he wanted to pick it apart and find pity. Maybe she should have kissed him and made sure he knew he was anything _but_ ordinary.

"Erik-"

"No," he quickly interrupted. "This is not a conversation we should have when you have a fiancé awaiting your return."

As much as she didn't want to consider Raoul at that moment, she knew Erik was right. Dear Raoul who'd once tried to save her from something he'd decided was a valid threat. No one had ever cared that it was actually her greatest desire.

"I don't want to keep reliving that last night at the opera," Erik insisted with the hint of his temper engaged. "That's now why I'm here."

"No, you want to keep playing a make believe angel," she corrected somberly. "And I don't need one anymore. …I've been to see the new Opera Ghost. I know who he is, and he isn't going to hurt me. Your worry and concern in unnecessary, unneeded, …and unwanted."

A spark of temper rapidly flared into an inferno, blazing over one point. "You've been to see him? Have you no sense in that gullible, little mind of yours? He's a _murderer_!"

"So are you!" she retorted, leaning closer from the chair's cushion. "I am no _fool_. I thought it was _you_ playing games again, and it seemed you'd lost your passion for everything that once mattered: music, …me. I went to your home to find out why."

He suddenly snickered beneath his breath and stated for her, "To find out why I was not stalking your every movement because, as was proven today, that's practically my favored pastime."

There was humor even in the center of his anger to find such a detail, and as the hint of a smile curved his lips, she reflected it back as she added, "In truth, it hurt to consider you hearing me sing at rehearsals and not caring. Not a word, not even an echoed song behind my mirror. It was more tolerable to simply conclude you were gone."

"Christine…" More serious subjects Erik was afraid to graze. He was supposed to be gone… He'd vowed it to the Vicomte, and yet here he was, in her presence _again_, victim to her blue eyes, mesmerized by every word from her sweet voice. The only detail in this scene he hadn't fantasized was a mask-less state while genuine emotions lingered hazy in the air.

Desperate to recall his self-imposed limits, he returned to the more important topic. "You went to see Damian, and what happened? He didn't threaten you, did he? He didn't…hurt you?"

"Of course not, his version of a threat was to destroy the Vicomte's reputation if I refused to sing or tattled his true identity. He won't hurt me."

"He needs you to sing," Erik finished for her. "Yes, I understood that much."

"It's more than that," she admitted with a solemn expression. "I met him once when I was a child. He recalled my father."

"And yet Damian isn't admiring you with familial affection. He _desires_ you, and I will have his neck in my hands if he ever attempts to touch you."

"My guardian angel just as I suspected," she denoted and could not suppress a rush of relief. She might have lied and insisted she didn't need an angel any more, but she knew she was safe under Erik's watch, …safe from everything but the connective tissue still binding them together. Even months apart had not fully severed it; nothing could. She was content with that realization.

As she sighed softly and curled deeper into the cushions, she set her cheek against her bent elbow and let the chair's arms cradle her. Warm, at peace, this was the most bliss her spirit had found in longer than she could remember. She felt Erik's eyes upon her and glanced at him in time to see an open adoration he never hid. No, it was too prevalent and exposed on that mask-less face, and its presence made her heart skip its beats.

When heavy words longed to escape, she chose lighter ones instead and bid, "You still haven't told me how _you_ know the new Opera Ghost. He called you 'acquaintances'."

Erik rolled his eyes with a huff. "At least he didn't lie to you and call us 'friends'. He's dangerous. He's learned to be a killer in hopes of emulating me, and that is a travesty in the making."

"He's jealous of you," she concluded.

"Yes, and I cannot fathom _why_. Jealous of a freak who killed people to get what he wanted. What is there to be envious of?"

A slight smile lit her lips as she gazed at him in the fire-glow, and she replied, "All you do, you do with passion, Erik."

"I'm a sinner."

"That's only _part_ of who you are," she corrected, nuzzling her cheek against her elbow and the fabric of _his_ shirtsleeve by default. "Damian is jealous of the world you made for yourself, despite your disadvantages. He's jealous of your genius, your skills, your music and creativity, …that you have me."

"I _don't_ have you," he quickly insisted. "The _Vicomte_ has you."

Christine didn't protest what she knew wasn't true. She pushed onward, "Let me guess. Damian crossed paths with you while you were doing something exceptional, awing with your voice and music, displaying your genius."

He raced tender eyes over her relaxed posture, her drying curls resting softly along her brow, her upturned cheek as he breathed, "You're creating fairytales again, _ange_. _You_ are the only one in my entire lifetime to find the good in the bad. I've never been praised for anything I am or anything I've done. That's why I adored being your invisible angel. You adored an angel and savored his presence in a way _no one_ savors Erik's." Before she could pose the argument he saw forming and actually longed to hear, he answered her assumption, "In a way, you're right. I was awing an audience when I met Damian, but from behind the bars of a cage."

The admission shook her. He hated seeing her pleasant calmness evaporate to a furrowed brow and an eruption of disbelief. "What do you mean…a _cage_?"

"There's good reason I don't share my past with you. It's vile and the sort of nightmare I don't want you to suffer."

"Tell me," she pushed with a sense of urgency that quaked her entire body. The trembling hand of her bent arm curled fingers into her palm as she tried to conceal their response and seem stronger than he knew she was.

One last look was taken of her beautiful face before he averted his own ugly counterpoint toward the hearth and gave his shameful reply. "I was caged in a Gypsy carnival freak show when I was a youth. I was…forced to play my violin and sing for the masses by punishment of whipping and beating. Damian was there; he was a fortuneteller and magician who lost half his audience and profit to my routine. In his quest for fame and fortune, he helped me escape. He tells the tale and makes himself my benevolent hero, but I think if he hadn't been _afraid_ of me, he would have killed over aided."

"Gypsy…carnival."

She seemed stuck on the one detail he thought unimpressive, and with only a slight hesitation, he brought abashed eyes back to her and found tears sparkling, crystalline and blinding, in the fire's glow.

"I warned you that it was a nightmare," he justified, but she shook her head, and a random teardrop broke free of lashes and glided along the curve of her cheek.

"I met Damian when my father played at a Gypsy carnival… My God, Erik, what if I was there at the same time you were?" More tears fell faster with her anxiousness. "They had you…in a cage like an animal, and I might have been there just a handful of steps away."

It was an interesting thought, but he shrugged without dwelling and concluded, "What could you have done even if you were? You were a child, Christine."

"What they did to you is…unforgiveable. What if I could have saved you?"

In his opinion, she cried for too many 'could have beens', but humoring the idea, he slowly approached, never shying his face from her view. Silently pensive, he knelt beside her chair on the cold, hard floor and held her gaze in his. It amazed him how astonishingly blue her eyes shone through tears' veil, their color piercing into his memory.

"Look at this face, Christine, and tell me if you had seen it in that freak show tent, staring at you from behind cage bars, what would you have felt?" Before she could give him honeyed lies, he lifted a hand for pause and added, "Answer honestly. Your child self coming face to face with a monster, and what would your reaction have been?"

Christine hated her weakness and the answer she knew she must give, and in a shameful whisper, she replied, "I would have been afraid."

He nodded as if he approved, and she never caught a glimpse of the anger and hurt he _should have_ felt.

"But that would have been a child's reaction," she added fervently. "The woman she became would know to look deeper and find the heart inside. It is too brilliant to belong to a monster."

"Christine," he sighed, but slowly shook his head. "I'm grateful that even if you were at that Gypsy carnival, you never walked into the freak show tent and witnessed my humiliation. Perhaps then you would have chosen only pity and that damnable fear. If you had heard the insults and jeers… They called me far worse than 'monster'. I wasn't allowed a mask; this face is all they saw. If you had heard their demeaning abuses, you might have thought the same and never be sitting before me now, making me forget I wear no mask."

The hint of a smile lit her lips as she decided, "If we had crossed paths back then, you would have seen a silly little girl, and you never would have loved me." She trailed her tear-blurred gaze over his features. They were so close…

"How wrong you are! You would have glowed with your amazing light before my eyes and destroyed hope for me when I realized I'd never have you. Pretty girls don't love monsters with ravaged faces, but an angel…one who kept his face hidden and secrets in the shadows… Hope came to me for the first time in my existence with that lie. I only wish it could have continued and saved you the disappointment of learning that angels fall."

"I couldn't touch invisible angels," she countered. In the comfort of firelight with raindrops beating from outside, it seemed dream-like and was easy to find bravery. "I want to touch you, Erik. ...Please. May I touch your face?"

She didn't act on her own, leaving him the choice, and that was the exact detail that made it for him. With a hesitant nod, he watched her lift her cheek from her bent elbow, resting her chin on her wrist as she extended her free hand toward his kneeling shape. He held his breath; it was a reflex when his body tensed and prepared for pain. He knew no different, and when her fingertips delicately grazed his sunken cheek where the skin was sallow and flimsy, he felt the breath leave him in trembling exhalation with the shiver that raced the length of his spine.

"Dear God…" The words fell from his lips as half a prayer with a strange terror that he was about to awaken and find this moment to be only another torturous dream. But…she never disappeared, and the edges never blurred as the pads of her fingers made a firmer contact, pressing gently against his cheek before following the exposed cavity about his eye. He knew how gruesome it was: too much bone and tendon exposed, too little skin for a necessary shield. He fixed his stare on her expression and was shaken inside and out to decipher curiosity…and longing.

"Tell me what you're thinking," he commanded a bit more brusquely than intended, but desperation was undeniable.

She briefly met his gaze with hers before returning attention to her hand's motion about his eye socket. "That I'm touching an angel. …That last night at the opera, I wanted to touch your face and make you smile. I thought I could be the one to fix the mistakes in what God had left unfinished. I was so certain you'd smile, …but I'm touching you now, and you're not smiling.

He silently scoffed, afraid to move too many muscles and remind her to be disgusted with him. "I'm too…overwhelmed to smile."

His lids dropped over his sight, and he concentrated only on the sensation of her soft fingers upon his cheekbone racing a caress to the place a nose should have rested. A question was in that touch, a sweet request for permission, and he gave it by timidly arching closer and nuzzling her fingertips. He had an urge to scream at her, to remind her that she was _supposed to be_ disgusted by his repellent features, that it was a sin to touch something God Himself denounced and had destroyed upon creation. But he was too weak to end this moment so soon.

Her fingers outlined the bloated irregularity of his mouth, and he lost a soft gasp and couldn't keep from whispering, "Are you now tainted in my disease, Christine? Is it all over your fingertips?"

"Don't be ridiculous," she gently chided, and he was surprised to feel no hesitation in her continued caresses as she followed the shape of his lips and then their seam. He held his breath again and did not let it loose until she moved on to his jaw line and stroked from chin to earlobe, slow and steady and such a temptation that it drove him mad with its burn.

"What if it's contagious?" he suddenly gasped and flinched from her hand. But although contact broke an instant, she was not deterred from reestablishing it and cupping his cheek in her entire palm.

"Christine, stop," he begged but never drew away. His eyes remained closed to her image, too afraid to finally glimpse uncertainty, …disgust. "I…I have no point of valid comparison. No one has ever touched my face. What if…I infect you? I'd never forgive myself."

He heard her give a small cry and wondered if he'd finally found a voice of reason as she drew away and made him moan disappointment for the loss. His skin sang with the need for _more_, deprived and starved for too long. Every cell tingled and insisted even a face that looked dead as a corpse was _alive_.

He didn't have time to open his eyes to reality and plead forgiveness for his transgressions; he jolted and forced himself to remain rooted to the floor as a new sensation overwhelmed. Her cheek pressed to his… He wouldn't have believed it if he didn't feel the tickle of her lashes against his cheekbone, her soft exhalation against his hairline, a stray curl ruffled by his harsh gasp and thrilling his mouth with its delicate grazing. He wanted to sob; the response was so deep that it struck his soul, but he was too terrified to frighten her away and remained stiff and rigid against her as he simply blew her name past his lips.

"Infect me; I don't care," she breathed against his ear and made him shudder. "If I were like you, then you wouldn't force me from you again."

A sob was swallowed back, but residual tears pooled in the deep cavities of his eye sockets and burned as they surfaced. He offered the one excuse he had even if half-hearted, "It was the right thing to do."

"All these months, I could feel myself bleeding inside from a wound that would never heal. You ripped my heart into two incomplete pieces. That was _not_ the right thing to do," Christine insisted, gently rubbing against his cheek. She never embraced him; her hands were shaking too hard to even attempt another touch, but she offered violent words instead and let their rampant syllables make anchors to his heart. "And will you do it again now? Will you offer me more lies, insist _I_ disgust _you_ for covering your face with my flesh and bathing your scars in my cells? Will you dub _this_ an abomination as damning as a kiss?"

"More damning," he concluded, and yet she took encouragement in the fact that he did not pull away. He pressed firmer yet to her cheek and smeared his tears between their skin. She shivered and hoped they left a stain behind.

"I want you so much!" he gasped against her ear, and her shiver deepened into a shudder. "It's always been _only_ you."

"You left me."

"You had something better awaiting you," he insisted, but the words felt hollow when she was pressed to his cheek, closer than she'd ever been. "I left to find something for myself, but the world holds nothing for me without you. I tried. God help me, I _tried_, and where have I ended? Back in your shadow, aching for something I can't have."

"Erik, no…" But her protest faded into the symphony of raindrops as he broke away and left her skin to burn miserably beneath his tears. She never brushed them away, letting them dry upon her and sink through the cushioned layer of her flesh. He bore no layers to block her mark; she was determined to know his just as deep.

Before she could argue, he was on his feet, elongating the distance between them but trembling so violently that she knew she'd affected his typical pretense. He didn't even bother posing arrogance or authority; she was grateful she'd broken the role so completely.

"Why don't you go upstairs and try to rest?" His voice was weak and declared without the words that it wasn't what he wanted. "I'll wake you when the rain stops."

"I'd rather stay here-"

"Christine!" he suddenly snapped, shooting her a glare. "I can't reason my own thoughts with you sitting in my chair in my clothes, …too close to my reach. Go upstairs, and leave me be."

She didn't want to obey, but she knew him too well. In an underground house, this would have been the point when he retreated into music and beat out an excess of emotion on a piano's keyboard. There was no equivalent in the meager walls of his current residence, and so though she longed to refuse, she huffed softly and gave a silent nod.

His gaze was locked on the hearth, never on her, as she rose and abandoned him. The creaking floor likely told the tale of her hesitant departure, her frequent pauses and looks cast back, but in the end, she found herself in his bedroom, curling upon the mattress in the groove where he had slept. She breathed his scent on the pillow and wrapped shaking arms about her waist, imagining him there.

It was a betrayal; every bit of this sinned against Raoul, but she purposely forced thought of the Vicomte to the background. She pressed the cheek that wore Erik's tears into the pillow and let dreams take her away.


	12. Chapter 12

I hope everyone had a fun and spooky Halloween. Ours was soggy but certainly memorable! :)

For anyone interested, the 3rd book in my angel series will be out this month. It's a dark and passionate story about a girl tugged between the angel who wants to save her and the devil who wants her soul. The cover is beautiful and is posted on my FB page. Please check it out!

Chapter Twelve

It was late into the night before the rain finally stopped. Erik lingered by the sitting room window, gazing out at the shiny surfaces of puddle. Most sat still and unmoving, but a few were stirred by tumbling drops from tree branches and rippled gently beneath the dark, clouded sky.

He was loath to wake Christine and return her to her rightful fiancé, but keeping her until morning was too much for his heart to bear. He wasn't supposed to be here, and the print of her flesh invisibly etched into his cheek was only further proof. …She deserved a man with a face to give her, with a clean soul, with every luxury she could ever wish to own. A Vicomte awaited her in an elegant mansion while he rotted away in a decrepit, loosely-termed house, lacking in every detail to make it a home. It was time to set her back on her path and forget the detour his actions tonight had rendered.

With a heaviness upon his shoulders, he climbed the staircase to his room, desperate to apply stealth and keep a creaking floor from giving his presence away. The door was ajar. She used to do the same in his underground home, leaving her bedroom door cracked ever so slightly. It was an invitation he was unsure she meant to make. How many times had he stood in the hall outside that parted door and debated whether or not to peek inside before inevitably taking his leave? Tonight, the story was changed, and though he crept inside with the intention to rouse her, he halted past the threshold and just stared.

She was asleep in his bed, curled on her side to his spying regard, and he pondered that he'd lain in that same place the night before, tucked within those covers, disfigured cheek against that pillow. The spot was suddenly altered and sacred now that it bore her essence.

His eager gaze trailed her peaceful features, savoring the curve of dark lashes brushing her cheekbone and the spread of silken curls along the pillowcase. She was so beautiful that he was addicted to the image alone and knew he'd suffer in torment every second he was away from her again.

Erik's attention settled on the fullness of her pink lips, his eyes following their rosebud shape and dallying in the dipped alcove of the upper one just below her sweet, little nose. Every detail was so intricate in its smallness, and he could imagine God taking such time and effort to mold perfection for Christine. His own construction was the equivalent of abstract art, paints smeared and blended into something unexpected and not often appealing or accepted as anything but chaos.

Timid across the worn floorboards, Erik stepped closer to his portrait of perfection, refusing to listen to sense when he considered he'd never have this again. Christine, vulnerably asleep before him, safe in his care, …_his_. With unuttered adorations playing on his tongue, he knelt beside the mattress and fantasized setting his cheek to hers again, to feel that glorious contact and the emotional maelstrom that went with it. But…there was something just as blissful that he yearned to take.

He slowly leaned close, shaking to his core, and ever delicate with a fear he could not suppress, he brushed his lips across hers. It wasn't a real kiss, just a taste of something he'd slandered and sinned against in terms that sung in his recollection. He'd cursed the most perfect moment of his existence, and now stealing it again did nothing to stop the ache inside. It was guilt, and it was longing, and a purloined kiss from a sleeping girl was dubbed a coward's transgression.

Regretting his foolishness, he got to his feet, seeking his original purpose for sneaking about and trying to ignore the warm tingle along the surface of his lips where hers had been. He shouldn't have dared.

"Erik…"

His heart pulsed a frantic race in his chest as he watched hazy blue eyes open and peer up at his intrusion. "Weren't you…asleep?" he demanded with a flush of guilt over every inch of skin.

She shook her head against his pillow, rustling the cloud of her curls, and he watched her hand leave the cocoon of covers and brush her own lips as his had. Shock, horror, humiliation, all fought for supremacy within him as he remained petrified in place and knew his eyes told his fault.

"I…I'm sorry," he stammered, unaccustomed to tripping over words, but what acceptable explanation existed for his actions? He'd been no better than the monster he'd fabricated for her that last night at the opera. Sneaking into her room, abducting a kiss as if it were his right… He deserved hell's greatest punishment.

"The rain stopped," he finally justified and backed a step toward the door and escape. "I…I'll take you back."

Christine abruptly sat up on the mattress, extending a hand toward him. "Wait. Don't go."

She was ready to hurry after him, but she saw his mismatched eyes lock on her hand, staring at it as if mesmerized before he suddenly stumbled the few steps back. Trembling through every limb, he caught her offered hand in his and slid to his knees beside the mattress again.

"Forgive me," he beseeched, lowering that disfigured face from her view. The hand clasping hers was cold and quivering, and she did not protest as it hesitantly drew hers to misshapen lips. A penitent kiss was placed against her knuckles, but despite the humility in the gesture, she felt a surge of sensation branch out from the place his mouth held and course her veins. It made even her flesh seem constricting to a heart and soul that longed to soar with his.

Christine never had to wonder if he was just as overcome as she was; the kiss frozen on her knuckles slowly traveled, dragged about the contours of her finger until his misshapen mouth settled against the lines in her palm. Her captive hand quaked with his assault, and yet she curved taut fingertips into the soft, unformed flesh of his damaged cheek and anchored her anxiousness in the fact that this was _her_ Erik. How many empty seconds had she longed to _feel_ him? She bore his unceasing tremble against her, the warm breaths escaping within her palm, uneven and _afraid_. She loved him so completely at that moment for every telltale he couldn't keep from sharing.

His voice was quiet as he urgently demanded into the curve of her palm, "Will you call the kiss I stole an abomination, as I did yours? It would be justly deserved."

Shy to be bold, she slowly slid her free hand about the crown of his head and wove her fingers in his thin hair. "You beg forgiveness for something so beautiful. Why?"

"You are not mine," he declared with a desolation she shared.

"I could have been yours. You gave me away. …_There_ is something to beg forgiveness for. You tried to scare me that night and used desire as another weapon to drive me away, and when it didn't work, you attacked with insults and a cruelty that wasn't real." Her fingers moved fitfully against his skull, gently kneading within the thin coating of his hair, unable to keep still. "You filled my head with lies, and the kiss you just took was the real truth."

Erik drew her hand to his cheek and arched his scars into her palm as his touch-deprived flesh warmed with her life as its inspiration. "You kissed me in the underground, and I was unaware you would. I stole a kiss moments back, and you were unaware I dared. I want to feel us both awake and alive. Pretend the storm is still raging, and I cannot let you leave just yet. It can be a dream suffered in your sleep, but…I want to know the future I gave away and have something worthy to regret."

He was afraid, but he feigned confidence and refused to ponder the sin in his actions. No, no, he'd carry guilt to eternity anyway. He might as well be damned with one taste of paradise on his undeserving, disfigured lips.

Lifting his head, he put his face in her sight, so near that there was no romanticizing the ugliness away. She didn't even flinch, and it only added to the dream.

"I'm going to kiss you," he bluntly revealed, "and you can deem me a monster and hate me for it later. But I beg you, give me this one pleasure first."

She was acquiescent, never giving the denial he wished she would find when temptation was so blissfully consuming. Her gaze flickered between his eyes and his lips, and he watched her nervously lick her own as she awaited his approach. He swallowed her trembling exhalation the instant before he fitted his lips over hers.

_God forgive me_… He abhorred himself for daring. His mouth was repugnant; her upper lip was dwarfed when compared to the swollen monstrosity of his. Even pursing his lips tight did not make mouths align, and shamed by his deficiencies, he began to pull away. But to his shock, _she_ took the reins. Her little hand suddenly became strong as it clasped the crown of his head and kept him as her willing partner and co-conspirator in this stolen sin.

Her lips pushed firmer to his, and the swollen arch of his mouth flattened to her pressure. So adamant, so convicted, and so fervent that he felt the reverberation quake his bent knees and leave him to catch her shoulders in his hands for stability.

Christine spoke love through the surface of her lips without a word to shatter fragility or letters to harden the edges. She made passion her ally and wrote silent songs that weaved about their bodies and stitched together every place that had been severed. She wanted him to feel the music in her every motion, and never loosening a frantic hold on his skull, she moved her lips against his, slow and eager, urging him to imitate and join her duet.

For all her authority, she was thrown from her pedestal to feel him reply and part misshapen lips over hers. It was a harmony that took over the melody, and as the tip of his tongue emerged long enough to lap at the seam of her lips, a whimper struggled free and gave him access. Her whimper was met with his delirious moan the second his tongue found its way inside and slipped deep.

He'd earlier obsessed over the idea of infecting her with merely a touch to his disfigurement; she sought to argue that he was infecting her _now_ with a kiss as his tongue explored the cavern of her mouth. But this was an infection she hoped would contaminate her every pore and seep into her bloodstream, and if it brought death at its pinnacle, she gladly embraced its possession with open arms.

He seemed desperate to make her feel this kiss, and she wanted to insist he didn't need to try so hard. She felt _everything_. Love, desire, every ache between both their hearts. She'd never known a kiss could mean so much, but it was more than a touching of lips; it was a touching of souls.

He began to draw away, and though her grip on him was fierce, he was stronger this time and broke the dream's bubble with a silent burst.

"No," she breathed with lips that felt bare without his against them. Her hazy eyes searched his face, seeking the same sensations she'd experienced, and she was grateful he couldn't hide his emotions fast enough. She saw wanting. "Erik, please…"

Erik finally found the impetus to get to his feet and distance his eager mouth from the temptation of forbidden fruit, but his gaze was riveted to the pink perfection of her lips. As much as it twisted his heart to dare, he demanded, "What of the Vicomte, Christine? Will you let me cover you in _my_ kisses and then return to his care at dawn?"

"I…don't have to go." She offered it meekly with a blush so bright that he could feel its heat even feet away.

Desire longed to _act_, to pin her to the bed and take everything she seemed willing to give, but that nagging voice of guilt would not quell. She might conclude she had no obligation to her fiancé, …but Erik did.

"This was a mistake," he decided. "I never should have brought you here tonight."

"And again you'll take the choice out of my hands," she accused with a potent mixture of anger and pain in blue eyes he'd just glimpsed brimming in love.

"You're making your choices ignorantly. You forget _what_ you are allowing to kiss you."

"What? _You_. Stop this monster nonsense with me. I _know _you, Erik. Even when you attempted to give me a monster, I found _you_ through the pretense. If you wanted to frighten me away, then you never should have shown me your heart. Now that's all I see when I look at you."

He believed her. How else could she spend all these seconds in view of his face and make it seem ordinary? So he gave the one argument he knew would win. "Ours would be a horror story, not a fairytale. I tried to show you as much. The beautiful bride in her pure white bridal finery, and will she commit herself to the corpse at her side? Shunned by the rest of the world? Ridiculed for her choices? Insulted because her husband is a freak of nature? The Opera Ghost's whore," his jaw clenched over the aberrant title. "That is nothing more than hearsay. It would be much worse to be the Opera Ghost's _wife_. You could marry the Vicomte and escape your ties to a ghost, but if you were _my_ wife, they'd all know you promised your life to a murderer, that you let him put his bloodstained hands on you and take you to his bed. There would be no denying something so shameful and heinous."

"I don't consider it shameful," she protested. "Did I not prove as much when you displayed your face to an opera house full of people? You wanted me to be ashamed that a man who looks like you loves me; you didn't expect me to choose pride and conviction in my heart over the influence of others. But I _did_. _They_ reacted in horror, but I…I only wanted to kiss you."

Her admission made him shudder as his lips thrilled in their new definition of what a kiss was and ached to learn it all over again. "Christine… These months away, I've been more alone than ever. After knowing what it felt like to love and _feel_, being an outcast to life was like God's punishment. The world will never accept me; I realize that, but _you_ need to understand what that means. They will insult and degrade you for loving a monster. They will be as disgusted with you as they are with me, more so because _you_ made the choice. They'll call our life sickening and depraved."

"I don't care-"

"They will _pity_ you, Christine, and so will I," he insisted and watched the words hit her like a strike. "Go back to the Vicomte, and consider what I'm telling you, consider if _this_ is a life you want for yourself. You keep scolding me for taking your choices away; make yours this time, but make it with _sense_ involved. A life in the shadows, despised and rejected by the world, married to a murderer and a sinner. Is it any wonder why I forced you away? And God forbid we be cursed with children!"

"Cursed…"

Her eyes dropped to the bedcovers, and though he saw the anguish he was inflicting along her furrowed brow, he pushed it further. "Perhaps they would be disfigured like their father, reviled by the rest of the world for things they cannot control or change. A child between us would be punished more than we would, the consequence of this so-called _gift_ of love."

"Why must you speak so cruel?" she demanded, still refusing to meet his intent stare.

"Because these were the thoughts in my head when I chose to send you off with the Vicomte all those months ago. If _love_ were all that mattered, I would have kept you to your word and married you that moment. But I couldn't reason fettering you to a nightmare when you were looking at our life through the lens of a dream."

"How quickly you depreciate love!" she retorted. "Love is worth more than anything, and if we condemn ourselves to a life reviled, then _love_ will be our bliss."

"You'd rather make our story a fairytale as you've always done. First, I was your hero, then your villain, now hero again as your strength catches up to your desires. But you neglect to believe that not all stories have happy endings. Is a chance to end in agony worth the risk?" Huffing an aggravated breath, he insisted, "Go downstairs and change. Your gown should be dry. I'll take you home, and you reason your options. Look at the life the Vicomte wishes to give you, and meditate on what I've said. I may make right choices, but I will always be drawn back into your gravity. I can't seem to break free on my own, and now with your kiss on my lips…" He shook his head. "Muse over the tragedy I've offered time and again, and decide if _I_ am enough for _you_ this time."

Christine hesitated, caressing his scars with her gaze and longing to use her lips instead. Kisses seemed transformative and magical at their core, …and the thought alone convinced her that Erik was right. She was scripting them a fairytale even now after his blunt realism; perhaps it would always be her downfall, but she truly believed love could change the world.

"You…you're not going to leave me again, are you?" she demanded with an urgent fear she never tried to hide.

"Not yet. I can't with Damian lurking about playing Opera Ghost. I have no faith in his word. Your Vicomte…he isn't _me_, and I only trust myself with your welfare."

She never offered the agreement sounding in her mind. She just rose from his bed on shaking knees and fled his presence and his sheer regard for reality. It was too garish for her; she yearned to shut it out and fall back into the kiss branded on her lips. But all she had was a promise he wouldn't leave, and she clutched it to her heart as she prepared to return to a different world.

The trek back should have been a fairytale continued. Rain had left its mark on the nighttime landscape and temporarily constructed a world of its own. As the moon peeked out from clouds, it glinted across the surface of puddles and slick walkways and made everything look glassy and shimmering.

Christine wanted to lose herself in the picture, but her attention was too consumed in the masked figure walking two steps ahead of her. He seemed careful not to acknowledge her, but she knew that was a lie. His head was tilted ever so slightly in her direction, hinting that he listened for her every footfall and breath, always transfixed on her details. She wondered if he carried as much disappointment as she did.

Not a word was uttered until the Vicomte's mansion house came into view. "I'll stay back," Erik insisted. "I have no wish to alert your fiancé of my return."

Christine raced her somber expression over his mask. The moon lent its luminescent quality to the surface, and yet it did not conjure the allure that rain-coated sidewalks were granted. No, the magic seemed reserved for a disfigured face she longed to see instead. Under the moonlight, it _must be_ beguiling.

"Are you going back to lingering in the shadows then?" she demanded, sharp and blameful.

"Isn't it easier that way? Lest I begin to inspire rumors of _two_ Opera Ghosts in haunting?"

"Erik-"

"Go inside, Christine. I promised I wasn't leaving yet; let that be enough," he bid, and she longed to call his apathy a façade.

But with a reluctant nod, she concluded, "For now."

One last look to the real Opera Ghost, the one who'd altered her world more permanently than a rain-shower's transformation, and she strode the rest of the way alone, hating the sound of single footsteps on the ground.

Before she even arrived at the door, it was abruptly opened. "Christine! My God, where have you been?"

She cast a quick look back, but there was no trace of a shadow looming, …and yet she felt his eyes. _The ghost haunted again_…

Averting her focus to Raoul as he grabbed her forearm and pulled her into a hug, she replied, "I waited out the storm." Everything about this felt _wrong_.

"Where? I went to the opera house to look for you." As he spoke, he drew her into the foyer and shut out the dark, and the click of a closed door pulsed an ache through her heart.

"In the middle of the storm?" she asked, desperate to concentrate on the present, but she was leading the way into the sitting room and drifting closer and closer to its tall windows with every breath.

"I was worried half out of mind," the Vicomte insisted. "When you didn't come home, I was afraid that…well, we don't just have thunderstorms to fear, do we?"

"Don't be ridiculous, dear boy! I was with Meg and the other ballerinas in the dormitories. It was like the days when I first came to the opera. Those girls are all chatter and no sleeping. Once I saw the rain had stopped, I decided to leave." The lies ran so smoothly that she could envision her concocted scene in her head and almost make it real.

"You couldn't have sent word to tell me where you were?" Raoul demanded with a hint of irritation.

"In the middle of a storm?" she scoffed doubtfully.

"You should have stayed in the opera house. You had to know I'd come for you."

"I'm sorry you were worried," she quickly declared, and that was only one point she genuinely carried guilt for. His worry, …a kiss with another man, …a love story that wasn't theirs.

A handful more steps had her at the window, and catching the sheer curtain between her fingers, she peered out at the night and searched the shadows. The surprise didn't come from learning a ghost lingered and was watching; it came with glimpsing a moonlit mask in the midst of darkness. If he was letting himself be seen, she knew he was doing it _for her_. Unable to stop herself, she stared mesmerized at that illuminated mask and delicately set her fingertips against the window glass.

"You're home now, so I suppose my nightmare is over," the Vicomte continued somewhere in the background. "It's very late. We should go up to bed. …Christine?"

She didn't want to stop looking, knowing the instant she did, he would vanish into the night, but as Raoul anxiously came behind her, she had no choice. Dropping the curtain back into place, she spun about and fixed her stare on a flawless face. It was too ideal…

"What were you looking at?" he inquired, but she didn't hear suspicion and hated herself for being such a good liar.

"The puddles. They're actually quite pretty in the moonlight."

A relieved smile was upon the Vicomte's lips as he cupped her face between his hands. All she could consider was Erik seeing their silhouettes through the sheer curtain, more thoughts to feel guilty for.

"I'm so happy you're home," the Vicomte said, his gaze gentle and adoring. "I've spent hours terrified something tragic occurred. I didn't know what to do. Dear God, if something had happened to you-"

"Raoul," she stopped him from finishing, "I'm fine, just tired. We really should go to bed now. I have to leave early for rehearsal, you know."

"I know," he wearily conceded, sliding his arm about her shoulders and guiding her out of the sitting room.

He walked her all the way to her bedroom, and she was grateful all he gave was a kiss to her brow before he left her presence. She didn't need more guilt tonight.

…Guilt for kissing her fiancé when she only wanted misshapen lips against hers. Oh, what was she doing? She was back in the spot she'd hated all those months before, tugged back and forth between Raoul and Erik, but this time…she knew what she wanted. She just had to be willing to rip apart her world to get it.


	13. Chapter 13

Here you go! Enjoy!

Chapter Thirteen

If she had not learned Erik was her silent guardian again, Christine would have believed she was going crazy. She _felt_ him, eyes always upon her, weighing her down with the heaviness of longing from both their corners. But in the days following the storm, he kept his distance and never materialized from his chosen darkness. She quickly grew tired of ghost games, but she was unsure how to bring them to their ending point. By the end of the week, she began to contemplate retracing her footsteps and searching for his decrepit residence, but with the Vicomte on constant alert for her return from rehearsal, she was skeptical she could escape without hinting that something was amiss.

Another afternoon of rehearsal brought yearning in tingles across her skin as she felt Erik so close yet denying both their hearts. She sang her second act aria for his ears alone, idly glancing to Box 5 yet never deciphering his among the shadows. She sent every not to the rafters, extending unconscious fingertips in a desire to _touch_, to know his face beneath every finger's pad and bring dead cells to life. Words flowed past her lips, and she wished for his to be there, his mouth capturing letters before they ever hit the air.

She was so engrossed in her fantasy that she did not notice the commotion going on behind her until one of the stagehands shouted, "Look out!"

No sooner had the call sounded than she was thrown to the ground under a tremendous weight. A stone pillar from the set had her leg pinned beneath it as she bore the reverberation of its strike to the stage floor and tried to regain her shattered composure and calm her racing heartbeat.

"Opera Ghost!" Meg shrieked, and as the ballerinas leapt up and down with their frightened caterwauling, Christine cringed and tried to squirm free from the pillar's hold.

High-pitched cries rained up to the stratosphere as a dark figure dropped onto the stage and strode among horrorstricken stares straight to Christine's side.

"Are you all right?" Erik demanded impatiently as he hauled the pillar from her leg with little more than an aggravated grunt for the effort. "Christine…"

He was about to survey her injury when the agitation from too many bystanders in every direction changed his mind. Without hesitation, he bent and collected her into his arms, lifting her off her injured leg and disappearing with her into the shadows again. It was a malaise of relief and exuberance to feel her weave thin, trembling arms about his neck and cling to him without timidity. It almost made him forget the unpleasant details in between.

"Erik, what happened?" she asked and brought focus back to the present.

Through a jaw clenched tight in kindling rage, he replied, "The new Opera Ghost saw it fit to end rehearsal early with a seeming accident. My God, he could have killed you!" His grip instinctively tautened, and he pressed an awkward kiss to her crown, cursing the interfering presence of his mask. "This charade has gone on long enough. I was willing to humor him when I had vows for your safety, but the instant he broke his word, he became my most despised enemy."

He could feel the unsteady rhythm of her heart beating against his as he carried her into the passages and chose tenderness instead. "It's all right, Christine. You have a guardian angel willing to walk through fire to save you."

"I already knew that," she replied, curving her fingers to the nape of his neck. He shivered at the contact. "It just happened so sudden. I was singing and lost in the music, and then I was on the floor. It never seemed so dramatic when accidents happened to La Carlotta; _she_ made them dramatic. But this…"

He huffed another enraged breath and demanded, "Does your leg hurt?"

"Not as much as my pride. Is it petty to be angry?"

"Not when I am _livid_. Damian has no regard for the sanctity of music. How dare he attack the prima donna in the middle of her aria?"

"_You_ attacked Carlotta in the middle of her arias," Christine reminded with the curve of a smile she could not conceal.

"Carlotta wasn't very good!" he justified. "It was no crime against music to put an end to her gratuitous shrieks. But you… My God, Christine, you sang brilliantly today. How dare Damian disgrace your performance with these distasteful antics?"

Her smile was pressed to the collar of his jacket as she softly revealed, "I sang for _you_, _ange_."

"I know," he breathed, and she heard all the pride she'd wanted to gain in those meager words.

Safe and content to be in his arms, she didn't realize they were traveling lower and lower through the passages until the air began to grow chilly and damp. It was too dark to make out anything significant to state their path, and she anxiously asked, "Erik, where are we going?"

"Home."

"You gave your home to Damian."

His scoff of doubt echoed the stone walls. "I gave him _nothing_. He _took_ the things he has, and now _I_ am taking them back. If this opera house must have a ghost, it's going to be _me_. _I_ wrote the role, and the hell if I'm going to hand it over to a second rate leech with no respect for anything without a monetary value attached. I am taking it all back."

"And me?" Christine offered, gently kneading her fingers against his nape and savoring the catch in his breath that told his response when she could see nothing in the dark.

"That…has yet to be seen."

"And yet you've abducted me from the stage and are carrying me through the catacombs," she declared, hiding her smile against his collar again when she knew he could see in the dark.

"You haven't offered a single complaint against my actions," he reminded.

"Why would I complain against what I've wanted most all week? I'm right where I want to be."

Erik heard so many promises in her subtext, but he didn't push for them to be spoken. He just pressed his fingertips into her silken curls and rushed their pace to the underground house.

It was a strange delight to cross the threshold with Christine against his heart. _Home_. This was _his_ life.

Setting Christine upon his couch, he went to turn up lanterns and bathe the room in warmth, glancing at her attentive stare as he worked and adoring the unconcealed affection in blue depths. When he finished his task, it was bliss to go to her side and be close enough for a touch. This was how he'd wanted things to be a year before, but fear had always stood in both their paths. Now…somewhere in the midst of separation, it had gone away for good.

Kneeling on the carpet, he never asked permission as he reached for the hem of her skirt and began to guide material up and out of his way. He was shaking; he couldn't make the tremors cease to be so shamelessly bold, examining as if she were indeed his to keep and care for. He exchanged a glance with her wide eyes before he uncovered her curved, stocking-clad calves and continued bunching skirts, petticoat, and lace-trimmed pantalets over her thighs.

Desire was breathing yet not as relevant as the damage he found. Like shadows showing through her thin stocking, bruises were already taking shape and painting colors upon one flawless leg from her knee up the side of her thigh. His brow lined with regret that something so beautiful bore such an imperfection, and though his fingers quivered through clamoring joints, he dared to reach for the cuff of her stocking and draw it down over creamy, brutalized flesh.

A glimpse to her petrified blue stare showed him her anxious trepidation, but she never refused as he left her stocking at her ankle and returned attention to her bruising skin. Without a barrier between, the colors were stark and vibrant on her pale pallor. Purples of every shade, splotching a blank canvas with their angry revelation. His fingertips quaked, but he grazed them down the center of her injury and darted his gaze to hers when her sharp gasp shook the air.

"Oh God…," Christine breathed, shuddering the length of her spine at such an intimate touch. Her body burned through every layer of protective flesh until the ache coated her veins in its potency, and the heat of her blush could not compare to the heat of desire.

Without a word, she fitted her palm over his knuckles and flattened his hand upon her thigh while a voice inside berated her brazenness. But…she _needed_ more skin against hers, and to feel his cold, shaking hand curve to her shape and fingertips dig into the tender flesh behind her knee wasn't enough but it felt like a start.

Drawing her hand from his, she left him to do as he pleased with no more than a breathless beseeching. "Don't stop touching me."

It was delicate as if he was afraid she'd shatter beneath too much pressure, but he guided a tentative, timid caress down her calf, the softest moan leaving his lips to tickle her ears. Down and up again to linger over her bruises as if a touch could dull their deepening hues. She shivered and gave an anxious whimper, clasping his hand in place again and meeting his mismatched stare as his eyes flared with a mixture of wanting and a curiosity that reminded her of her own.

"Christine-"

She was so certain he was going to say every emotion-laden musing she longed to hear, but they never had the chance to surface. The door burst open, and an enraged Opera Ghost strode inside.

Erik nearly growled his fury, jerking Christine's skirts back into place, but too late, it seemed; their intruder caught a glimpse of too much pale skin and intimate curves, his dark eyes pausing their retaliation to peruse Christine's details before Erik leapt to his feet and put himself in between.

"Bastard!" he roared. "You could have killed her!"

Damian snickered doubtfully as he yanked his mask from his face and declared, "The intention was never to _kill_ her. I _knew_ you were lolling around the opera house and that this would call you out of hiding, _and_ as a bonus gift, it displayed to every one of those gossipmongers that the Opera Ghost is just as infatuated with the fair Mademoiselle Daaé as ever. We will have a full house when the show opens. People can't stay away from real-life drama. They'll be eager to see what the ghost concocts next for his prima donna lover."

"A publicity stunt! You dared to put Christine's welfare in jeopardy to stir the pot and further your aspirations, and I will not stand back and let it happen again. You have overstayed your welcome. Get out of my opera house."

"_Your_ opera house? You _left_, and I carried on the legacy. You can't toss me out when I have redefined the role. It's _mine_ now."

"Yours? You conceited fool! _Your_ opera house? _Your_ Christine? _Your_ authority to sin as you like? You crept in like a sneaky viper and staked your claim, and now you are delusional to believe that means anything. _I_ am the Opera Ghost, the one and only, and no imposter will take my place again."

Erik presented no waver in his demeanor, no weak spot that could potentially crumble. He had the one thing he feared losing sitting on the couch beside him watching through wide, blue eyes. Any other attack Damian could pose was superfluous and futile as far as Erik was concerned.

"How long until you run away like a coward this time?" Damian demanded. "Give me a broad estimate so I may know when it's my turn again."

"The ghost lives and dies with me," Erik concluded sharply. "You are unneeded and unnecessary and are through building yourself an empire on my success and name. Get out."

"Such gratitude for the man who saved your pathetic existence!" Damian exclaimed, and trying to peek around Erik's rigid stance, he appealed to Christine, "Did he tell you that _I_ saved him from a life in a cage? …Or maybe not when a cage only makes him sound more like an _animal_. I'm sure for your ears, he whispers only the sweetest lies. He _must_ if he's got you hiking up your skirts for his murdering hands!"

With a guttural growl, Erik lunged and had the Gypsy's throat between his hands, choking his breath without a single flicker of regret. A dead charlatan would have been only a nuisance on his conscience, but…he knew Christine looked on and spied every murderous tendency.

Throwing Damian to the floor, Erik stated, plain and inarguable, "Get out of my opera house. The next time you leave, it will be in a casket."

Stumbling back to his feet, Damian cast a glance to Christine before retorting, "You will regret this. I promise you that."

"That's doubtful, and if you ever lay even an eye on Christine again, I'll snap your neck before you have the chance to look away. She is _mine_."

Damian's dark brows arched skeptically, but without another argument, he gave a haughty bow and turned for the door, shouting over his shoulder, "The next time our paths cross, I will not be so benevolent. Caskets all around, old friend. If I am to leave in one, you will be joining me in that fate."

A slammed door was his final farewell, but Erik was not calmed even after he set the lock in place.

"Erik…"

Her voice. That was the thing to soothe the heightened edge of every nerve, and with a sigh, he rushed to Christine's side. Fixing her in his stare, he searched for returned fear and reluctance, but didn't find their colors as she caught his hand in hers and wove fingers together.

"Do you think he'll go?" she asked with an anxious peek at the closed door.

"No." Exhaling a heavy breath, he concluded, "I need to set new traps and alarms. Do you wish me to take you back first?"

"No," Christine answered immediately. "I want to stay with you."

He nodded, and she saw a relief he likely hadn't wanted to share. Had he truly believed she'd run away in terror again? Even as she clasped his hand in hers, he seemed tentative and afraid, as if waiting for the second she'd recall the violence in that same hand and recoil.

After a breath when she only tightened her grip, _he_ was the one to pull away, releasing her hand and scooping her into his arms instead. "I need you to heed my words until I return," he said as he brought her down the hall.

She could already conclude where he was taking her. Her room. What she didn't know was the condition they'd find it in. Its entrance in the hidden panel was so easily overlooked that she doubted Damian could have realized its existence. True to thought, as they stepped inside, she noted nothing out of place from that last night they'd been within its walls. Her mind recalled the tearing sound of fabric and demented features pressed to her bare back, and she shivered in his arms and drew his notice.

"You don't need to be afraid," he insisted, and she never corrected his assumption. "You'll be safe locked in here until I get back. Do you trust me?"

"More than anything," she replied as he gently lowered her onto the mattress of her canopy bed and lingered a moment at her bedside.

"Then trust that I will never let anything happen to you."

Before he could go, she caught his hand again and drew it to her lips, holding a long kiss against his knuckles. He'd been reminded of the blood on his hands; she longed to show him there could be so much more than that.

"These are not the hands of a monster or a murderer to me," she breathed against his fingers. "They are the hands of a musician, a genius, …a lover." That single word said everything, the answer to the unasked question, and she saw him take it with a rush of hope before he slowly pulled free.

"I…will return soon," he bid, racing ravenous eyes over her one last second before he left. She watched him take the time to carefully set the hidden door back into place and this time never considered herself a bird trapped belowground. No, he was her protector first and foremost, and a door with no escape was instead an armored shield to spread her wings behind with no fear they'd be broken ever again.

Cuddling back in her pillows, she said a prayer for his safety, wishing she could be his guardian angel right back.


End file.
